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THE SABBATH 



WHAT~WHY-HOW, 



DAY-REASONS-MODE 



M. 


/ BV 

C. BRIGGS, 


D.D. 


NEW YORK: 

CINCINNATI : 


PHILLIPS &» /^Z7.Vr. 
CRANSTON &f STOWE. 






The Ltti^Aftif^ 

WASHINOTOW 



Copyright, 1888, by 
C. BR I GGS, D. D. 

New York. 



Keep the Sabbath: Which? Why? How? 



MvTia'&?!Ti Trjv rfjizpav tuv calijiaTuv dyia^eiv avTTjv. 

Remember the day of the sabbaths to hallow it — Fourth 
command in the Septuagint. 

And he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, to be accepted 
for you : i n the morrow after the sabbath the priest shall 
wave it. 

Oipe 6e aajifiaruv, ttj EWKpuamvarj eic fuav aa^^aruv, rikQe 
Mapla i] lA.ay6aXrivri^ Kai rj aXkrj Mapla, Beupr/aai tov Ta4)0v. 

Afler the fud of the sabbaths [of the now superseded dis- 
pensation] as it began to dawn toward the first of the sabbaths, 
came Mary the Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sep- 
ulcher. Matt, xxviii, 1. 

in r\r\'d^y\ rh''}} r\\n\ hk^j? Di'n-nr.. 

This is the day Jehovah hath made ; we rejoice and are glad 
in it. Psa. cxviii, 24. 

But Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common 
assembly, because it is the first day on which God, having 
wrought a change in the darkness and matter, made the world, 
and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same day rose from the 
dead. — Justin Martyr. 



PREFACE 



WITHIN the domain of Christian insti- 
tutes and ethics the Sabbath holds a 
vital place. All questions relative to the day 
and the uses of the day command the attention 
of the thoughtful. Our controversy is not 
chiefly with the ardent advocates of a Saturday- 
Sabbath. These zealous people, students of sta- 
tistics tell us, amount to a fraction less than 
seven tenths of one per cent, of the population. 
Their energy, liberality in denominational out- 
lays, instancy in season and out of season in 
propagating their doctrines, and fidelity to 
their Sabbatarian convictions, are to be com- 
mended. One only regrets that their influence 
is not brought to bear in support of the true 
Sabbath. Their genius of interpretation — espe- 
cially that of the Saturday-Sabbath adventists 



6 PREFACE. 

— illustrates itself in specific results which must 
counterwork each other, such as formal feet- 
washing (now well-nigh abandoned, I believe), 
the denial of Christ's divinity, the utter and 
contemptuous rejection of a supersensuous nature, 
a soul or spirit in man, and the annihilation of the 
wicked. Small neighborhoods and narrowly 
read individuals will be disgusted by the busy and 
well-meant obtrusiveness of these people ; but no 
imminent peril to Christian truth need be an- 
ticipated from a sect which begins with Judaism 
and ends with naked materialism. A sect 
which has no stated commemoration of the 
grand certifying fact of the Gospel, the egersis 
of the crucified Iledeemer, will not long and 
to any great extent rob the world of the " lively 
hope" to which we have been " begotten by the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." 

A far greater peril menaces Christianity from 
another quarter. The indifference of multi- 
tudes of the professed friends of the Sabbath ; 
the ignorance of other multitudes of its grounds 
and claims ; the puerile pretenses for seculariz- 



PREFACE. ij 

ing the day ; the facility of guilty compromises ; 
the pompous formality ; the pride of display ; 
the sensationalism miscalled " preaching ; " the 
needless and thoughtless Sunday travel ; the self- 
accommodating ministerial exchanges ; the Sun- 
day pleasure-seeking ; the feeble excuses offered 
for voluntary absence from the house of God ; 
the social visiting ; the open profanation of the 
Lord's day by excursion-trains to camp-meet- 
ings, and advertised preaching in places of 
irreligious resort ; the putting forth of the doc- 
trine of expediency, or precedent, or temporal 
benefits, or apostolic example, or patristic usage, 
as the only " authority" for Sabbath-keeping — 
these are counts in an indictment of many 
church members, and some ministers, whose ex- 
ample is a thousand times more damaging to 
the Church's influence and the Sabbath's proper 
sanctification than Saturday-Sabbathism and 
open-mouthed infidelity in all their shapes and 
riames and moods and tenses. Here lies the 
cause of my alarm and the chief reason for this in- 
trusion upon the attention of the Cliristian public. 



8 PREFACE. 

Witlioiit pretense of scholarsliip, or ambition 
for authorship, or special qualifications of any 
sort, I have patiently traced the Sabbath through 
the Hebrew Scriptures, and through the Greek 
of the Septuagint and the New Testament, and 
have reached conclusions which, with profound 
defej-ence, are herein submitted to Christian 
scholars and to all devout students of the word 
of God. 

That there has been a progressive interpreta- 
tion of Scripture, keeping pace with the de- 
veloping needs of men and the crises of ex- 
perience, none will deny. Hence it sometimes 
comes to pass that an inferior intelhgence, under 
pressure, catches glimpses and gleams of truth 
which have eluded the scrutiny of abler minds. 
Many an accepted exposition is but the suitably- 
worded consensus of the realizations of the 
struggling, hoping, trusting, praying, poor. 
Truth, like liberty, is the child of storms. Trial, 
like darkness, 

" shows us worlds of light 
We never saw by day." 



PREFACE. 9 

It has long been clear to me that, without a 
distinct recognition of its divine and law-clothed 
authority, the Sabbath would not be able to 
hold its place against the world, the flesh, and 
the devil. It has been equally clear that, in 
the language of the Pastoral Keport of the 
great Methodist Centennial Conference, "a 
spiritual Church without a Sabbath is an impos- 
sibility." To borrow words from the report 
concerning moral questions, submitted to that 
same Conference, I am profoundly convinced 
that " we cannot expect the world to keep the 
Sabbath holy if the Church of God fails to do 
it. If the Church desert her own altars it is in 
vain that we call wicked men to gather about 
them." I have beheld with wonder, pity, 
and alarm the growing looseness of views and 
practices with respect to the day, and have been 
impelled to search the Scriptures with all prac- 
ticable diligence, to find an authoritative ex- 
pression of the mind of the Lord. 

Most phases of the Sabbath question have 
been discussed with an ability which cannot be 



10 FEE FA CE. 

exceeded, and a fullness which leaves nothing to 
be supplied. But there is an argument which 
I do not find in any of the twenty odd works, 
small and large, within my reach, and whicli (I 
am almost frightened to say) is to my mind the 
one conclusive argument that, in the end, must 
close the debate. It is purely scriptural, and 
does not need the support of collaterals. 

In the following pages I undertake to do these 
nine things : 

First. To show a commanding probability 
that the Sun's-day of the Sabean idolatry which 
prevailed in all the nations of the East was the 
perverted primeval Sabbath. 

Second. To prove that the Hebrews, at the 
time of the Exodus, were worshipers of the 
Egyptain Sun -god Osiris, symbolized by Apis, 
the golden bull. 

Third. To prove that the day of the Hebrews' 
toilsome march from Rameses to Succoth was 
made the initial of an exceptional weekly Sab- 
bath, set back one day from the perverted 
primeval Sabbath, and belonging to this pecul- 



PREFACE. 11 

iar people alone, and during their preparatory 
history. 

Fourth. To prove that the Sabbath is a sa- 
cred proper name by which God designates a day 
set apart for holy uses, and means more than 
rest, or seventh, or week, or all of them together ; 
and any day to which the name is applied by 
divine authority is a holy day. 

Fifth. To prove that the Hebrews had a 
Sabbath out of the septenary order, and yet as 
binding and as much under the force of the 
Sabbath law as the weekly day. 

Sixth. To prove that the Decalogue is con- 
stitutional and universal law, while the Hebrew 
statutes and ceremonials are by their very terms 
restricted to one peculiar people, and must 
have surceased with the dispensation of which 
they formed important features. 

Seventh. To prove that the fourth command- 
ment is irrepealable on any other supposition 
than that the entire Decalogue is repealed. 

Eighth. To prove that the fourth command- 
ment is the law of a movable festival, is obey- 



12 PREFACE. 

able every-where, and demands an ordinal and 
relative usual and convenient seventh part of time 
in every longitude and latitude, and not an ab- 
solute seventh in astronomical and seiDtenary 
identity from the time and place of the original 
institution. 

Ninth. To prove that the day of our Lord's 
resurrection from the dead was made and named 
the first of the Sabbaths, as being the restora- 
tion of the relative primeval Sabbath, and first 
by pre-eminence, as being commemorative of the 
grand certifying fact on which the scheme of 
redemption is pivoted. 

If these propositions are adequately sustained, 
controversy is at an end. The Sabbath will ap- 
pear as agreeable to the wisdom and beneficence 
of God, as necessary to the welfare of mankind, 
and as imperative upon the conscience as when 
the law was given at Sinai. 

To forestall the frequent use of Hebrew and 
Greek type I give here the words which will 
oftenest occur, together with the spelling and 
sense in Eno-lish. 



PREFACE. 13 

From the Hebrew are the following : 

nnK> Shabbath— Sabbath. 

Iin22> Shabbathon — Solemn rest. 

n2K>nnnn^D Mimmaharath Hashabbath— The 
morrow after the Sabbath. 

y^3^ Shabua— Week. 

y^nf Shebii— Seventh. 

From the Greek : 

la(3(3aTov — aaPdara — Sabbath — Sabbaths. 

la(3(3aTG}v — Sabbaton — of Sabbaths — genitive 
plural. 

Trjg enavpiov ro)v aafijSaTOJV — The morrow of 
the Sabbaths. 

'Ej3doiJ,og — Hebdomos — Seventh, week. 

Mm — Mia — One — First by priority or pre- 
eminence. 

'HjLtepa — Day. 

Let no one infer from frequent references to 
the originals that he must understand Hebrew 
and Greek before he can settle his views on the 
Sabbath question. Any thoughtful reader who 
will follow the argument with his English 
Bible in hand may reach perfectly satisfactory 



14 PREFACE. 

conclusions. To have quoted all the passages 
referred to would greatly have swollen the vol- 
ume. I have therefore assumed that all who 
are interested in this grave discussion have 
Bibles, and will use them according to citations. 
It is desirable not only to reach safe conclusions, 
but also to know the steps by which we reach 
them. The satisfaction will well repay the toil. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Sabbath, its Institution, its Perversion into 
THE Day op the Sun, its Degradation to Sun- 
worship 17 

CHAPTER II. 
The Meaning op the Name Sabbath 30 

CHAPTER III. 
The Exodus — The Revised Calendar— The New 

Sabbath 44 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Sabbath Law 60 

CHAPTER V. 
The Law op the Sabbath ' 10 

CHAPTER VL 
A Change of Sabbath Foretold and Foreshadowed. 8-i 

CHAPTER Vn. 
The Lord op the Sabbath Made the Foreshadowed 

Change, and the Holy Spirit Certified it 1 Cl 



16 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. p*"" 

Patristic Testimony and Usage 123 

CHAPTER IX. 
Opinions op Wise Men 145 

CHAPTER X. 
The Grounds and Claims of a Civil Sabbath 152 

CHAPTER XL 
Prevalent Abuses op the Sabbath 110 

CHAPTER XII. 
Right Uses op the Sabbath 179 



THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER L 

Its Institutiok — Its PERVEKsioiir into Sunday 
AND Degradation to Sun Woeship. 

THE SABBATH, like marriage, was in- 
stituted in the time of man's innocency, 
and is as essential as marriage to the right 
ordering of human life. Such are the laws and 
limitations of the liuman understanding that 
any species of knowledge lying outside the in- 
tuitive and sensuous nmst be preserved and pro- 
mulgated by means of set times and institutes 
of instruction. Tlie knowledge of God could 
not have been perpetuated, even in a sinless 
race — much less in a race blinded and alienated 
by sin — without a perpetually recurring day for 
bringing to remembrance the work, rest, will, 
and character of Him who upholdeth all things 
by the word of his power. 



18 THE SABBATH. 

The divine record is brief and explicit. " The 
heavens and the earth were finished, and all the 
host of them. And on the seventh [Septuagint, 
e«T7/, heJcte, sixth] day God finished the work 
which he had made. And he rested on the sev- 
enth day from all his work which he had made. 
And God blessed the seventh day and hallowed 
it, because that in it he rested from all his work 
which God had created and made." Gen. ii, 1-3. 
Here is the memorial rest-day, synchronizing 
with the dawn of human history and nndergird- 
ing the life of man. The Sabbath and our race 
began their career togetlier. 

The next express notice of tl:e daj^ occurs 
twenty-five hundred years later — Exod. xvi, 23 ; 
where Moses speaks of it in a way to suggest 
that the idea was familiar to men. The fre- 
quent references to God's rest at creation as 
the ground reason on which the Sabbatic insti- 
tute stands, considered in connection with the 
word of our Lord that " the Sabbath was made 
for man," man generic, to meet a fundamental 
and universal need of his nature and life, renders 
it every way improbable tliat the race was left 



THE SABBATH. 19 

to wander down the centuries, from Eden to 
the Wilderness of Sin, ignorant of an institution 
designed bj infinite beneficence for tlie highest 
good of body, heart, and home. 

The proposition that the Sabbath was known 
in the infancy of the race receives strong sup- 
port from the universal prevalence of the sep- 
tenary division of time. Such a division is 
arbitrary, as not being suggested by any thing 
in nature, and not being anticipable on grounds 
of physical and societary benefits, which, in the 
nature of the case, must be learned by expe- 
rience ; yet it appears to have prevailed so gen- 
erally as to preclude the hypothesis of accident 
and to demand a rational theory of explanation. 

There are supposed scriptural allusions to 
the weekly period, at a very early date, such as 
Gen. viii, 10-12. From his measuring time by 
sevens it is inferred that the weekly order must 
have been accepted in ISToah's time. " The end 
of the days," when Cain and Abel " brought 
tlieir offerings unto the Lord," Gen. iv, 3, 4, has 
been supposed to indicate a periodic day for 
worship. More clearly, " The day [" the day 



20 THE SABBATH. 

is," Young's translation] when the sons of God 
came to present themselv^es before the Lord" 
was, and is, the hallowed day. Job i, 6 ; ii, 1. 

This theory is strongly supjDorted again by 
the fact that all the heathen nations held to the 
same division of time, with a superior or sacred 
day as a conspicuous feature of the calendar. 
This fact we learn from Homer, Hesiod, Her- 
odotus, and other ancient writers. Philo, the 
Jewish philospher of Alexandria, says without 
qualification : " The Sabbath is not a festival 
peculiar to any people or country, but is com- 
mon to the whole world." Laplace has this 
strikingly philosophic statement : " The week is, 
perhaps, the most incontestable monument of 
human knowledge. It appears to point out a 
common source whence that knowledge pro- 
ceeded." It is certain beyond attempt at con- 
tradiction that the septenary division prevailed 
among Egyptians, Phenicians, Babylonians, As- 
syrians, Greeks, Italians, Celts, and Indians. 
Chaldean cuneiform characters show a weekly 
rest-day, the name of which bears a striking 
likeness to the Hebrew Sabbath, and means " a 



THE SABBATH. 21 

rest of the heart." That the Hebrews measured 
time by weeks, before Moses, is proved by Gen. 
xxix, 27, 28. 

That the Sabean idolatry — the adoration of the 
lieavenly bodies — was tlie first formulated idol- 
atry of the race is strongly supported by the 
judgment of scholars. That it was very ancient 
does not admit of doubt. Job acquits himself 
of any suspicion of thus denying " The God 
that is above." Job, xxxi, 26-28. It is certain 
that the worship of the sun, as the creator, pre- 
server, and fructifyer, prevailed among the 
nations of the East as far back as dim glimpses 
can be obtained of prehistoric ages. When the 
worsliip of the true God faded from men's 
minds it was a natural transition that the at- 
tributes and offices of the Creator should be 
transferred to the most conspicuous and power- 
ful natural object, and equally natural, if not 
an inevitable sequence, that the periodic day of 
special divine worship should become the day 
of the sun. It is unquestionable that sun- 
worship was the chief religion of most ancient 
nations, under many images and names, such as 



22 THE SABBATH. 

Bel, Belus, Baal, Kali, Mnevis, Osiris, Helias, 
and Apollo. So widely prevalent a religious 
usage presupposes a real or assumed authorita- 
tive origin of a purer worship perverted into 
this fascinating idolatry. Thus there is every 
philosophic probability that when the worship 
of the living God was degraded into the adora- 
tion of the sun the day divinely appointed to 
be hallowed became the sun's day. 

For the purposes of the present argument I 
am concerned only with sun-worship and Sun- 
day in Egypt, at and near the time of the 
Exodus. 

It is needless to enter upon an extended ac- 
count of whatever of truth or fable lias come 
down to our time respecting the gods and god- 
desses who are supposed to have held supreme 
sway in the land of the ISTile long before any 
recorded dynasty. Long before the Pharaohs, 
Ptah and Neith — Sun -god and consort — were su- 
perseded in Lower Egypt by Ka (Phra) the su- 
preme God of the sun. Indeed, the Pharaohs 
took their royal name from Phra, on account 
of some fancied relation which they bore to 



THE SABBATH. 23 

" the King of the gods." The gods of Upper 
Egj^pt bore different names, but were Sabean 
divinities ; and likeness of functions caused a 
gradual amalgamation of the pantheons of the 
two great provinces of ancient Mizraim, as shown 
by such compound titles as Ammon-Ra, This 
at least is clear: that before the Exodus two 
great potentates, Osiris, and Isis — male and fe- 
male — ruled the worship of Egypt, as Herodotus 
affirms, " from the mouth of the Nile to Elephan- 
tine." For convenient reference to a fuller ac- 
count see Christ and Other Masters^ by Hard- 
wick, pp. 418-451. 

At the time of Joseph's enslavement the 
capital of Egypt was Heliopolis, the ancient On 
or Aon, the City of the Sun, as both names 
signify. It was situated on the eastern bank of 
the Nile, north of Memphis, six or eight miles 
from Cairo. It was " the Rome and Oxford of 
Egypt," the center of its mihtary pomp and 
power. The two highest of the privileged 
classes were the priestly and the military. Every 
king must belong to one or the other; and to 
marry into a priestly family was to be admitted 



24 TEE SABEATK 

to the highest social elevation. Tliis honor 
Pharaipii conferred upon Joseph by giving him 
to wife Aseuath^ the daughter of the priest 
(probably high or chief priest) of On. Gen. 
xli,45. 

From such facts it would appear that the only 
rational exj^anatioa to be given of the universal 
Yeneration for Sunday is tliat that day was the 
perverted primeval Sabbath. This was the faith 
of the eai-ly Christian Church, as I shall have 
occasion to show in place. But evidence sti-ong 
as proof of Holy Writ is f otmd in the fact that 
9,11 the evangelkts and the apostles to the 
Gentiles call Sunday, the day of Kesurreetion, 
" the first of the Sabbaths." Indeed, resurrec- 
tion-day is called nothing but Sabbath, save in 
the one instance in which St. John names it the 
Lord's day. Tlie tiiith of these statements I 
hope to demonstrate in the proper place. 

Here, then, we find Joseph and his family and 
their descendants in a nation of sun-worshipers, 
whose great religioiTS day was the day of the 
sun. The industrial system of that then thrifty 
and powerful people must have crystallized about 



THE SABBATH. 25 

their day of general public worship. Yet in all 
the history of the Hebrews' day of favor and 
power, and of their dark years of oppression and 
enslavement, there occurs not an intimation of a 
conflict of opinion and usage between them and 
the Egyptians with respect to the sacred day of 
the week. It cannot be assumed that the sons of 
Jacob, in the earlier periods of their sojourn, 
worshiped the golden bull, Osiris, in the temples 
of the sun. And it is almost as improbable that 
they could have deranged the economy of labor, 
in a land where idleness was a crime punished 
with expatriation, by worshiping on a different 
day, without some mention being made of so 
disturbing a custom. It is far more rational to 
infer, in keeping with considerations already 
advanced, that the Israelites worshiped the God 
of their fathers on the same day that the Egyp- 
tians adored the chief luminary of our system. 

That in later centuries, as we approach the 
Exode, the Hebrews, enslaved and debased, wor- 
shiped the chief divinity of their masters on 
their masters' day, is commandingly probable in 
the light of the following considerations : 



26 THE SABBATH. 

1. It is in accord with human nature that 
bondmen, for fear, conviction, and the hope of 
favor, should accept the rehgion of their masters. 
Witness the fact that negro slaves in the South 
were Cathohc or Protestant according to the 
faith of their owners and overseers. 

2. It is not in accord with human nature to 
suppose that their task-masters indulged the 
Israelitish brick-makers with an exceptional day 
for worship, thus encouraging disrespect toward 
the rehgion of the nation and deranging tlie 
industrial economy of the country. Pharaoh 
was angered when Moses and Aaron called the 
elders from their work for consultation, and 
fiercely commanded them back to their task. 

3. Among the complaints uttered by the 
enslaved people not a word is said about the 
deprivation of Sabbatic privileges. 

4. These are strong grounds of inference. 
But that, at the time of the Exodus, they were 
long-accustomed sun-worshipers, and that they 
adored the deified orb in the golden bull. Apis, 
the symbol of Osiris, is demonstrated by their 
conduct at Horeb. Moses was longer out of sight 



THE SABBATH. 27 

than suited the habit of this people, who Kved 
chiefly in their eyes and ears and stomachs, and 
they asked Aaron to make them a god to go be- 
fore them. He promptly molded and graved a 
golden calf — egel, a young bullock, a small Apis — 
and built an altar before it. Immediately the 
multitude began to bring their offerings and to 
dance about the image in a way so accustomed, 
so f amihar and obviously habitual, as to preclude 
the thought that it was a new service. Reflect 
that this people had been three months under 
divine guidance, witnesses of mighty miracles, 
and that it was Aaron, Moses's brother, their 
chief elder, who fashioned the " god of Egypt ; " 
and can any one possessed of the power of 
thought doubt that when Aaron "turned them 
loose," in the language of the Revised Yersion, 
they eagerly returned to an idolatry to which 
they had long been habituated ? The transition 
was too sudden, the descent from a true religion 
too great, and the manner too expert to admit of 
any other explanation. (See Exod. xxxii, 1-24.) 
Deut. ix, 16: "And I looked, and, behold, ye 
had sinned against the Loed your God, and had 



28 THE SABBATH. 

made you a molten calf : ye had turned aside 
quickly out of the way which the Lokd had 
commanded you." Neh. ix, 18: "Yea, when 
they had made them a molten calf, and said. 
This is thy God that brought thee up out of 
Egypt, and had wrought great provocations." 

Lest there should be found a reader endowed 
with that prodigious incredulity which is " credu- 
lity gone to seed," let me add the exphcit con- 
firmation of the sacred word. Josh, xxiv, 14 : 
" ^ Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him 
in sincerity and in truth ; and put away the gods 
which your fathers served on the other side of 
the flood, and in Eg}q)t ; and serve ye the Loed." 
Ezek. XX, 5-9 : " And say unto them. Thus saith 
the Lord God ; In the day when I chose Israel, 
and lifted up mine hand unto the seed of the 
house of Jacob, and made myself known unto 
them in the land of Eg;vT)t, when I hfted up 
mine hand unto them, saying, I am the Lord 
your God ; in the day that I hfted up mine hand 
unto them, to bring them forth of the land of 
Egypt into a land that I had espied for them, 
flowing with milk and honey, wliich is the glory 



THE SABBATH. 29 

of all lands : then said I unto tliem, Cast ye away 
every man the abominations of his eyes, and 
defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt : I 
am the Loed your God. But they rebelled 
against me, and would not hearken unto me: 
they did not every man cast away the abomina- 
tions of their eyes, neither did they forsake the 
idols of Egypt : then I said, I will pour out my 
fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against 
them in the midst of the land of Egypt. But I 
wrought for my name's sake, that it should not 
be polluted before the heathen, among whom 
they were, in whose sight I made myself known 
unto them, in bringing them forth out of the 
land of Egypt." Ezek. xxiii, 3. Psa. cvi, 19-21 : 
" They made a calf in Horeb, and worshiped the 
molten image. Thus they changed their glory 
into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass. 
They forgat God their Saviour, which had done 
great things in Egypt." Acts vii, 41, 42 : " And 
they made a calf in those days, and offered 
sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works 
of their o^wii hands. Then God turned, and gave 
them up to worship the host of heaven." 



30 THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Meaning of the Name Sabbath. 

ii nnHE term Sabbath is transferred from the 
X Hebrew, and means rest." So Buck, 
Cahnet, Smith, and others. A few authors 
attempt to emphasize the assumption by adding, 
" IS'othing more." 

A man of very humble attainments ought to 
dissent from such higli authorities, if dissent he 
must, with extreme deference. It has cost me — 
as well it might — much study, self -searching, and 
close thinking, to become bold enough to ques- 
tion the venerable proposition as untenable ; but 
necessity is upon me, and I cannot do otherwise. 

If Sabbath is Hebrew must we not trace its 
use in the Hebrew Scriptures to ascertain its 
meaning? Turning to this line of inquiry, we 
are forced to the conclusion that Sabbath does 
not carry rest as its only, or even its paramount, 



THE SABBATH. 31 

meaning. Eest is a resultant sense, arising from 
its relation to the more vital uses of the day. It 
is a condition necessary to the f uliillment of the 
higher uses of the weekly worship-day. 

If Sabbath means rest only, it must impress 
us as anomalous that the word is so severely 
restricted to one use, and has no synonyms or 
interchangeable terms. The Hebrew has other 
words to express every shade of rest, such as 
manoach, Psa. cxvi, 1 ; menuchah, Psa. xcv, 11 ; 
Pugah, Lev. ii, 18; margoa, Jer. vi, 16; but 
none of these is ever employed as a substitute. 
Shabhathon is a technic used exclusively to 
qualify Shabbath, and carrying the sense of 
solemn rest. (See Exod. xvi, 23.) 

If Sabbath means rest only, then the man who 
suspends exertion and consults ease keeps it, and 
he who slumbers most keeps it best. But is it 
possible seriously to think that such a use fills 
the scriptural intent? An ox keeps its con- 
sequent Sabbath by browsing in the meadows 
and ruminating in the shade. A man profanes 
the day by resting only. 

If Sabbath means rest only, how are we to 



32 THE SABBATH. 

justify the tautology of tlie Hebrew in employ- 
ing iiiotlier word — ShahhatJion — to express rest 
as a qualifier of the very name rest? As 
samples see Exod. xvi, 23 : Shabbathon Shab- 
bath-godesh, "holy rest of the Sabbath, sacred 
to Jehovah." Exod. xxxi, 15: "The Sab- 
bath of solemn rest, sacred to the Lord." Lev. 
xxiii, 32 : "A Sabbath of rest." Lev, xxv, 4 : 
"A Sabbath of rest unto the land" (A. V.). 
Must we accept a rest of rest — a rest of the holy 
rest — a holy rest of the rest, as the word of the 
Lord ? Inevitably so, if Sabbath means rest only, 
or chiefly. 

The use of the verb S/iahath, so far as it sheds 
light, confirms the assumption that Sabbath 
means much more than rest. Thus Gen. ii, 2, 
and in six other places, substantially, " He rested 
on tlie seventli day." Conceding that the sev- 
enth day was the Sabbath, we have here again 
the awkward tautology of resting on the rest. 
It is weU to notice in this connection that Sha7j- 
at/i, to rest, like Shabhat/ion, is used only in con- 
nection with the appointed day of worship. 
Let it also be noted in ]>assing that the Sej?iua- 



TEE SABBATH. 33 

gmt renders Gen. ii, 2, Kareivavoe r-rj ^fiepa tt] e(3- 
SoiJbi}, Katepause te liemera te hebdonie ; of,, ^xod. 
xii, 15, 16; xiii, 6; xvi, 26, 27, 29, 30 ; xx, 10, 
and many other places, where it will be observed 
that both the Hebrew and the Greek keep up 
a marked distinction between the rest and the 
day. If Sabbath meant rest simply, it could 
be adjoined to any other day as well as- to the 
seventh. 

If Sabbath means rest only how are we to ex- 
plain the preparation of the show-bread, the 
offering of double sacrifices, the labors of the 
great choir and orchestra, and the laborious 
reading and exj^ounding of the prophets and the 
law on that day ? 

Possibly some one is ready to ask if there 
could be a Sabbath without rest in the sense of 
the suspension of secular toil. No ! But there 
could be a thousand rests in that sense without a 
Sabbath. Such rests may occur on the seventh 
day, and yet amount only to a desecration. If 
man were animal only that sort of rest would 
meet his necessities, as it does those of the lower 
orders of life. If man has a supersensuous 



34 THE SABBATH. 

nature, a soul, a spirit, proper Sabl3ath-keeping 
for him must involve and engage his higher pow- 
ers, relations, and duties. He cannot keep the 
sacred day holy by idling or sleeping. 

That Sabbath means more than rest is strongly 
supported by the better rendering which the 
Kevised Version of the Old Testament gives to 
Shabbathon, namely, a solemn rest. This fact I 
have already anticipated. 

For additional references see Lev. xvi, 31 ; 
xxiii, 3 ; xxv, 4, 5 ; Exod. xxxv, 2. 

Sahhath carries the sense of seventh — which 
has sometimes been claimed as an inseparable 
meaning — much as it carries rest, as an accidence 
of signification. Seventh sujjervenes upon the 
law of periodicity. A seventh has no more in- 
herent virtue than a sixth or a fifth. It is an 
incident of the ordinal succession of days. It is 
a day which follows the sixth day of labor. It 
is '■''every seventh day, not the seventh day in 
exact astronomical order — dies septemis, not dies 
sej}timus'''' — (Dr. Schaff). Hence we could not 
substitute a tenth, or eighth, or twelfth. It is 
every recurring seventh convenient and ordinary 



THE SABBATH. , 35 

division of time, in every part of the globe 
where men live and die. 

The Sabbath was founded on a septenary di- 
vision of duration. Few will attempt to main- 
tain that the days of creation were solar days. 
Yet the law of periodicity, the physical, mental, 
and spiritual needs of human kind, and the 
fundamental convenience of society would make 
it a solar day in those latitudes where most of 
our race dwell. There was sometliing natural, 
therefore, in the erroneous rendering which The- 
ophilus mentions to Autolycus : " Most know 
not," says he, "that what among tJie Hebrew^s 
is called the Sabbath is translated into Greek 
tlie ' seventh' {ej3dondg), a name which is adopted 
by every nation, although they know not the 
reason of the appellation." 

If Sabbath means seventh we have again a 
cumbersome and meaningless reduplication of 
terms in both the Hebrew and the Greek, 
[any times shebii is connected with Sabbath for 
lusignation. See as samples Exod. xvi, 26 : " Six 
days ye shall gather it ; but on the seventh day, 
which is tlie Sabbath, in it there shall be none." 



gg . • THE SABBATH. 

Exod. XX, 10. " But the seventh day is the Sab- 
bath of the LoKD thy God : in it thou shalt not 
do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daugh- 
ter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor 
thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy 
gates." 

Lev. xxiii, 3. " Six days shall work be done : 
but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, a 
holy convocation : ye shall do no work tJierein: 
it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwell- 
ings." 

In all such constructions the theory that Sab- 
bath means seventh {hehdomas) encounters the 
absurdity of the seventh seventh ; the seventh 
day is the seventh day, etc. But I scarcely 
needed to refute a theory which has no very able 
supporters. Yet a weak theory may harm the 
weak. 

Nothing favorable to the assumption with 
which we are just now dealing can be rationally 
inferred from the fact that Sabbath usually 
marked the weekly division of time. I say usually, 
because it sometimes marked divisions of years; 
and in one instance, at least, it was an annual 



THE SABBATH. 37 

day, wholly out of the septenary order, as I shall 
have occasion to show. True, from Sabbath to 
Sabbath was usually a week. So from Tuesday 
to Tuesday, or Sunday to Sunday, is a week. 
The Greek appears to have no specific word for 
week, and therefore uses hehdomas, from sTrra, 
hepta, seven. The Hebrew uniformly uses sha- 
hua, not Shabbath, nor Shabbathon, for week. 
See Gen. xxix, 27. "Fulfil her week and we 
will give thee this also for the service which thou 
shalt serve with me yet seven other years." 

Exod. xxxiv, 22. " And thou shalt observe the 
feast of weeks, of the first-fruits of wheat har- 
vest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's 
end." 

iN'um. xxviii, 26. " Also in the day of the first- 
fruits, when ye bring a new meat-offering unto 
the Lord, after your weeks he out, ye shall have 
a holy convocation ; ye shall do no servile work." 

Dent, xvi, 9. " Seven weeks shalt thou num- 
ber unto thee : begin to number the seven weeks 
from such time as thou beginnest to put the 
sickle to the corn." 

2 Chron. viii, 13. " Even after a certain rate 



38 THE SABBATH. 

every day, offering according to the command- 
ment of Moses, on the Sabbaths, and on the new 
moons, and on the solemn feasts, three times in 
the year, even in the feast of unleavened bread, 
and in the feast of weeks, and in the feast of 
tabernacles." 

Jer. V, 24. " Neither say they in their heart, 
Let us now fear the Lord our God, that giveth 
rain, both the former and the latter, in his sea- 
son : he reserveth unto us the appointed weeks 
of the harvest." 

Dan. ix, 27. " And he shall confirm the cove- 
nant with many for one week : and in the midst 
of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the 
oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of 
abominations he shall make it desolate, even im- 
til the consummation, and that determined shall 
be poured upon the desolate." 

The Greek Xew Testament employs terms 
with perfect discrimination, using hehdomas only 
twnice — Heb. iv, 4 — and that by way of quota- 
tion from Gen. ii, 2, where the Hebrew uses 
yom hashhii^ day seventh. In all other places, 
sixty-eight in number, it gives the proper name, 



THE SABBATH. 39 

Sabbaton, and always as the sacred rest-day (or 
year) of the Old Dispensation or the E'ew. 

I have already incidentally answered the as- 
snmjjtion that Sabbath means week. A little 
reflection will convince us that this theory carries 
its advocates into inextricable absurdities. If 
the embarrassments of the case have not occurred 
to the reader let him substitute week for Sab- 
bath in a few passages and be convinced. 



SABBATH IS THE SACRED PEOPEE NAME OF A 
MOVABLE FESTIVAL. 

I am now prepared to support the proposition 
that Sabbath is a sacred proper name, used ex- 
clusively, when not applied to the year or the 
land, to designate a day set apart and consecrated 
to the suspension of physical labor in order 
to the edification of the spirit by the devout 
memorial study of God's works, word, and ways. 
Tlie verbal noun Sahhatismos^ in Heb. iv, 9, is 
not an exception. It expresses a Sabbatism, a 
full, active, adoring rest in the world to come, 
when time-Sabbaths shall have ended with the 



40 THE SABBATFT. 

hmnan probation in and for wliicli thej are vital 
and most benefic^at provisions. 

Sabbath oecni-s one hundred and three times 
in the Old Testament, and its equivalent Greek 
term one hundred times in the Septuagint, and 
sixty-eight times in the New Testament. And 
in all cases, save the nine which relate to years 
and the land (and figuratively there), it is a sa- 
cred proper name, of wliich neithei* seventh, nor 
rest, nor week, nor all of them together, can be 
accepted as an adequate translation. It needs 
only an intelligent tracing of the term through 
the Hebrew Scriptures, or, for that matter, 
through our English Version, to put its projxir 
meaning and office beyond rational doubt. Sah- 
hafon and its inflections maybe followed through 
the Septuagint and the New Testament with 
like results. 

The curious reader may have noticed the re- 
mark that the Septuagint translation of the He- 
brew Scriptures is said above to employ the 
name Sabbath three less times than the original 
which it translates. It may be well to explain 
tliis slight and only disagreement. All of the 



THE SABBATH. 41 

instances 'occur in Lev. xxiii, 11, 15, and 16. 
The Passover Sabbath was the 15th of Nisan, 
Mimmaharoth Hashabhath — the morrow after 
the Sabbath — the Jew was to bring the sheaf of 
first-fruits to the priest, to be waved before the 
LoKD in token of gratitude. The Greek has 
re enavpwv rrjg npG)T7], te ejXLurion tes 2?rotes — the 
morrow after the first — that is, the first day of the 
beginning of the feast, which would be tlie 16tli 
of Nisan, corresj^onding with our Sunday. 
Greek, tt/^ enavptov tg)v aa(i(iaro)v — tlie morrow 
of the Sabbaths. In verse 16 we have rrfq enav- 
ptov TTjg eaxarTjg, tes ejpciurion tes eschates — the 
morrow after tlie last — that is, tlie last day of the 
feast ; esohates, last, being relative to protes, first. 
The tliird case is verse 15, last clause ; " seven 
sevens " in the Greek. 

King James's Version gains two Sabbaths by 
mistranslation of Shabhathon, in Lev. xxiii, 39, 
which error the Eevised Version corrects. 

For the convenience of such readers as may 
not have access to complete concordances of the 
Hebrew and Greek, or of the English, which 
could answer, and yet may wish to make a 



42 TEE SABBATH. 

thorough personal examination, I give here a hst 
of all the passages wliich contain the name Sab- 
bath. 

In the Hebrew, Shabhath may be fonnd one 
hundred and three times, as follows : 

Exod. xvi, 23, 25, 26, 29 ; xx, 8, 10, 11 ; xxxi, 
13, 14, 15', 16 ; xxxv, 2, 3. Lev. xvi, 31 ; xix, 3, 30 ; 
xxiii, 3^ 11, 15^ 16, 32^ 38 ; xxiv, 8 ; xxv, 2, 4, 
6, 8' ; xxvi, 2, 34^ 35, 43. N'um. xv, 32 ; xxviii, 
9, 10. Deut. V, 12, 14, 15. 2 Kings, iv, 23 ; xi, 
5, 7, 9' ; xvi, 18. 1 Chron. ix, 32 ; xxiii, 31. 
2 Chron. ii, 4 ; viii, 13 ; xxiii, 4, 8' ; xxxi, 3 ; 
xxx^n, 21. Neh. ix, 14; x, 31^ 33; xiii, 15", 
16, 17, 18, 19^ 21, 22. Psa. xcii, (title). Isa. i, 
13; Ivi, 4; Iviii, 13'; Ixvi, 23. Jer. xvii, 21, 
22', 24, 27'. Lam. ii, 6. Ezek. xx, 12, 13, 16, 
20, 21, 24; xxii, 8, 26; xxiii, 38; xliv, 24; xlv, 
17; xlvi, 1, 3, 4, 12. Hos. ii, 11. Amos, viii, 5. 
The Septuagint follows the Hebrew except in 
the places designata 1. 

To all who have followed the preceding rea- 
sonings and traced out the citations it must be 
apparent that there is a distinction between the 
essential Sabbath and the day of its celebration, 



THE SABBATH. 43 

as there is between American independence and 
Independence day. If God had consecrated tlie 
sixth or eighth day to Sabbath uses, as the initial 
of a perpetual recurrence, it would have been as 
sacred as the seventh. It is clear, therefore, that 
a transfer of Sabbath to the eighth or first day, 
if done by competent authority, would in no 
manner or degree abrogate or infract tlie Sab- 
bath law, nor necessitate any modification of its 
terms, " Remember the sabbath day to keep 
it holy" would be as fitting an enjoinment of the 
duty as though no change had been made. The 
Septuagint has, fivrjO'&TjTt ttjv rifxepav rwv aajS^aTCdv 
dyta^eiv av-ev — Remember tlie day of the Sab- 
haths to hallow it. The Jews had more Sab- 
baths than one. The holiest of all their Sabbaths, 
as I shall show in place, occurred but once a 
year, and was wholly out of the septenary order. 
Yet the law applied as forcefully to that as to 
the other. 



44 TEE SABBATK 



CHAPTER III. 

The Exodus — The Revised Calendar — The 
New Sabbath. 

COME we now to the Exodus. Here was atl 
ignorant, debased people to be led out of 
bondage and planted in a world-center, to be- 
come the custodian of the light of lights to the 
nations. These slaves were the children of 
promise. To them were to pertain the adoption 
and the glory and the covenants and the giving 
of the law and the promises. Theirs were the 
fathers, and of them, as pertaining to the flesh, 
Christ was to come. To human ej-es they were 
an unpromising race for such a mission ; but 
God's promise to Abraham could not fail of ful- 
fillment. These rude and stiff-necked j^eople 
nnist be recovered from idolatry, and awed and 
terrified, surprised and melted into a just appre- 
hension of the supremacy of the living God. 
What a work ! And how was it to be accom- 



THE SABBATH. 45 

plislied ? God always deals witli men according 
to the laws of tlieir life. The " fullness of the 
tune " could not come otherwise than by ages of 
prophecies, providences, proofs, and experiences. 
How, then, could the prerequisite reformation 
of this horde of Hebrew helots be effected ? 

First of all, Moses was fitted for leadership. 
Possibly in the archives of the court he had 
traced the record of Joseph and had become 
fired with some as yet vague purpose of deliver- 
ance for his kindred. Woble and self -forgetting 
as he was, his strong nature needed forty years 
amid the mountains of Midian, in sacred inti- 
macy with the God of his fathers to bring his 
lofty and imperious spirit into adoring harmony 
with tlie supreme will. 

Then the cupidity, tyranny, and pride of 
power of Pharaoh and his subjects were to be 
overcome. Judgment followed judgment in 
awful and resistless procession, till the death of 
the first-born in palace and hovel extorted a 
mighty cry of anguish, mingled with which was 
a prayer to the Hebrews to depart quickly out of 
the land. 



46 THE SABBATH. 

It must be assumed that many items and inci- 
dents of preparation failed of record. Here were 
" six hundred thousand that were men, besides 
cliildren," and here were " very much cattle and 
a mixed multitude " to accompany and comph- 
cate the march. Such a multitude could never 
have moved in spontaneous order without a 
miracle greater than the dividing of the sea. 
Doubtless " the rulers and elders of the peojDle " 
had been assigned their places and well instructed 
in their several parts. A great amount of quiet 
preparation must have preceded the actual out- 
starting. Thus the awful night of the passover 
found every thing in readiness. With girded 
loins and staves in hand the people waited for the 
first streak of dawn and the word of command. 

Association is strong. Habit is a chain of 
steel. This people must be eifectually separated 
from the old life ; from temple, altar, set daj^s, 
and all the concomitants of sun-worship. Sab- 
eanism prevailed not only in Egypt, but, as 
Maimonides affirms, " had filled the whole world." 
They would encounter it among the tribes 
through wliich they passed and in the land to 



THE SABBATH. 47 

wliicli they were going. Dr. Watson and many 
others of the learned think that the Zabii (Sabe- 
ans) " were probably the first corrupters of the 
patriarchal religion." The taint of this seductive 
idolatry was in the air. Every tie which bound 
the Israelites to this infatuating worship must be 
severed, and the chosen keepers-in-trust of the 
divine oracles must be set apart like an island in 
the sea. For this purpose they needed a new 
order of months and a new beginning of their 
year. Such a counteractive and educating re-ad- 
justment of the calendar was one of the methods 
resorted to by divine wisdom. The seventh 
month of the Egyptian year was made the first 
of the Hebrew. Exod. xii, 1, 2 : " And the Lord 
spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of 
Egypt, saying. This month shall he unto you the 
beginning of months : it shall he the first month 
of the year to you." Exod. xiii, 4 : " This day 
came ye out in the month Abib." Deut. xvi, 1 : 
" Observe the month of Abib, and keep the 
passover unto the Lord thy God : for in the 
month of Abib the Lord thy God brought thee 
forth out of Egypt by night." 



48 THE SABBATH. 

Ahib exchanged places with Tisi^i and thence- 
forth became the lirst month of the Hebrew- 
sacred year. Reverently speaking, what a stroke 
of divine policy was that ! This strange people, 
destined to stand alone in all the earth, had not 
so much as a yearly calendar in common with 
surrounding nations, Tliey were, indeed, to be 
a " peculiar people." But that feature of liea- 
thenism which was most ensnaring, because fullest 
of suggestions of the all-prevalent sun-worship, 
was the corrupted primeval Sabbath, the Sunday 
of idolatrous devotion. If the order of months 
needed to be changed, how immeasurably more 
this day, so jiregnant with evil ! Should 
Israel, already tainted with idolatry, march 
through and past tribes and nations on a new 
mission, toward a new land, with a new first 
month and a new year, and carry the old Sab- 
bath, now Sunday, rife with vile sohcitations 
and furnishing a wide door of contact with all 
that was most prevalent and pernicious ? To an 
unbiased inquirer the supposition is an impeach- 
ment of the wisdom of their divine Deliverer. 
There was the strongest anterior probability that 



TEE SABBATH. 49 

he who was about to lead them out of bondage 
and pollution would give them a new Sabbath 
to complete their new environment, thus closing 
the doors of heathen tem23les against their re- 
entry. Under the laws of human thought this 
last expedient would appear most essential of alL 

THE DAY OF THE EXODE WAS MADE THE SAB- 
BATH OF THE HEBEEWS. 

On the night of the 14:th of Abib the anxious, 
hopeful supper of the passover was eaten. Exod, 
xii, 6, 8 : " And ye shall keep it up until the 
fourteenth day of the same month: and the 
whole assembly of the congregation of Israel 
shall kill it in the evening. And they shall eat 
the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and un- 
leavened bread ; and with bitter herhs they shall 
eat it." And the ready host stood waiting for 
the dawn. " This is that night of the Lokd to 
be observed of all the children of Israel in their 
generations." Exod. xii, 42. And because of 
its solemn interest and memorial significance 
they were to commemorate it by beginning their 
Sabbath, unlike Sundays and civil days, in the 



50 THE SABBATH. 

evening instead of midnight or morning. This 
was another mark of their complete setting apart 
among tlie nations, as was their worshiping 
witli faces toward the west, in tabernacle and 
temple, instead of toward the east as sun-worship- 
ers did. 

The command to go forward on the morning 
of the 15 th of Abib was God's proclamation of 
emancipation, and the day of their deliverance 
was the day of days. Nations monument their 
grfeat days. It is wise in them. The commem- 
orative celebration of epochal days is a valuable 
method of instruction. Surely such an event as 
the deliverance of a whole people from intol- 
erable bondage could not fail to be memorialized 
by the people of whose history it formed so 
signal a part. 

The time and fact of the exode were cele- 
brated by the great annual feast of the passover, 
as also by the perpetual memorial observance of 
the day of their departure from Rameses as the 
Israelitish Sabbath. Exod. xiii, 3, 4, 8 : " And 
Moses said unto the people, Remember this day, 
in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the 



TEE SABBATH. 51 

house of bondage ; for by strength of hand the 
LoKD brought you out from this place : there 
shall no leavened bread be eaten. This day 
came ye out in the month Abib. And thou shalt 
show thy son in that day, saying, Hiis is done 
because of that which the Loed, did unto 
me when I came forth out of Egypt." (Exod. 
xxiii, 15) : " Thou shalt keep the feast of 
unleavened bread : thou shalt eat unleavened 
bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the 
time appointed of the month Abib ; for in it 
thou camest out from Egypt : and none shall 
appear before me empty." Exod. xxxiv, 18 : 
" The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. 
Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as 
I commanded thee, in the time of the month 
Abib : for in the month Abib thou camest out 
from Egjqot." I^um. xxxiii, 3 : " And they de- 
parted from Eameses in the first month, on the 
fifteenth day of the first month ; on the morrow 
after the passover the children of Israel went out 
with a high hand in the sight of all the Egyp- 
tians," At midnight of Abib 14 the first-born 
were smitten. All day of the fifteenth the great 



52 THE SABBATH. 

host, burdened with baggage, cumbered with 
flocks and herds, even " very much cattle," toiled 
on toward Succoth, without taking time to rest 
or cook food. Yet this same fifteenth of Abib 
was even after a Sabbath of holy rest, the initial 
of a perpetually recurring weekly commemora- 
tion of their deHverance. The Sabbath was to 
be an ever-recurring reminder that it was God 
who sanctified them — set them apart from the 
nations. See also Deut. v, 15 : " And remember 
that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, 
and that the Lord thy God brought thee out 
hence through a mighty hand and by a stretched- 
out arm : therefore the Loed thy God com- 
manded thee to keep the sabbath day." This 
reason could apply to no other people. 

Was this the Sabbath Avhich they had been 
used to observe ? Or did God give them a dis- 
tinctive Sabbath ? Happily there are two points 
of argument between our Saturday-Sabbath 
brethren and ourselves. First, we agree that the 
children of Israel made their first day's march 
on the 15th day of Abib. Second, we agree 
that this was Satm-n's day, which ever after was 



THE SABBATH. 53 

the Hebrew Sabbath. The only question in de- 
bate is, Was this a Sabbath which they had pre- 
viously kept, or was it made a Sabbath to them 
as an exceptional and peculiar people ? Satur- 
day-Sabbath writers strenuously maintain that it 
was the patriarchal Sabbath, the pristine seventh 
day, the only Sabbath ever given to mankind. 

"We think we have already shown cogent and 
conclusive reasons for rejecting the Saturday- 
Sabbath theory. The thoughtful reader needs 
only to remind himself that the Egyptians were 
sun-worshipers centuries before the time of 
Joseph ; they were sun-worshipers when Jacob 
and his other sons settled in the land ; there is 
nowhere an intimation of contrariety of views as 
to the day specially set apart for public worship ; 
it is a fair inference that the Hebrews worshiped 
God and the Egyptians Osiris on the same day ; 
this agreement became a necessity when the 
Hebrews multiplied, even under Egyptian task- 
masters, and fell into the order of Egyptian in- 
dustrial life ; at the time of the exode the Israel- 
ites had been long enslaved and were deeply 
debased ; it took forty years of miracles, chas- 



64 TEE SABBATH. 

tisements, and elaborate instruction, and finally 
the extinction of all but two of the entire adult 
population which canie out of Egypt, to prepare 
them to be trusted in Canaan; Aaron, their 
chief elder, made the golden calf, and the people 
hastened to worship it. Add to these reasons, 
stated in a former chapter, the fact that, if the 
idolatrous Hebrews distinguished Saturn's day 
at all it was, in every probabiHty, to observe the 
feast of Saturn, the most loathsome of all the 
heathen feasts. Also the fact that the confusion 
of the rulers and people with respect to the first 
Sabbath-keeping in the Wilderness of Sin indi- 
cates that the day was new to them. Exod. xvi, 
22-29 : " See, for that the Lord hath given you 
the [a] sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the 
sixth day the bread of two days : " v. 29. It 
is obvious from the history that there was a re- 
centness about it. Had that Sabbath been a long 
and sacredly familiar day such differences would 
have been impossible. Also add that three of 
the reasons assigned for keeping the Sabbath, 
namely, 1. To commemorate the new covenant 
made with them in Horeb. Deut. v, 2, 3 : " The 



THE SABBATH. 55 

Lord our God made a covenant with us in Ho- 
reb. The Lokd made not this covenant with 
our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of 
us here ahve this day." 2. To remind them 
perpetually that God had sanctified or set them 
apart from other peoples. Exod. xxxi, 13 : 
" Speak thou also unto the children of Israel, 
saying, Yerily my sabbaths ye shall keep : for it 
is a sign between me and you throughout your 
generations ; that ye may know that I am the 
Lord that doth sanctify you." 3. To celebrate 
their deliverance from slavery. Deut. v, 15 : 
" And remember that thou wast a servant in the 
land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God 
brought the'e out thence through a mighty hand 
and by a stretched-out arm : therefore the Lord 
thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath 
day." These reasons could apply to no other 
people. Finally, for the present, reflect that if 
the 15th of Abib was their holy day, their Shah- 
lath Shdbhathon, before the Exodus, as it was 
ever after, not only were new reasons assigned 
for recognizing its obligation, but God com- 
manded the most conspicuous desecration of his 



56 THE SABBATH. 

own appointed Sabbath that human Iiistory re- 
cords. See that immense concourse, sweating 
under their heavy burdens, driving their flocks 
and herds, surging Hke a sea, with much more 
tlian the noise of a marching army of a milhon 
men, and say if you can persuade youi-self to be- 
lieve that God ordered all this to take place on 
the day in which men w^ere not to do their o^vn 
work, nor seek their own pleasure, nor speak 
tjieir own words, nor tliink their own thoughts ! 
Men, women, children, servants, cattle were to 
rest on God's Sabbath, in order that his worship 
might engage the undistracted mind of all. Put 
this laAv and use of the day side by side with a 
divine command to mai-ch, carry kneading- 
troughs, and driving stock through all the weaiy 
day! 

Let me, at this point, direct attention more 
specifically to a Sabbath out of the septenary 
order, alluded to on jjreceding pages. We have 
already seen that the w'ord Sabbath carries 
se'S'^nth onlv as an ordinal incident of meaninor. 
Tliose w^ho clioose to turn to Lev. xxiii, 2T-32, 
wdll see that the tenth day of the seventh month 



THE SABBATH. 57 

(Tisri), the great day of atonement, was to be 
Shabbatli Sbabbathon, a Sabbath of solemn rest, 
throughout their generations. The Septuagint 
renders the name Sabbata Sabbaton the Sab- 
bath of Sabbaths. In the Hebrew calendar, as 
revised at tlie Exodus, tlie 1st, 8tli, 15th, 22d, 
and 29th of the seventh month, as of the first, 
were always Sabbaths. Here, then, is a specially 
enjoined Sabbath occurring between the 8th 
and the 15th, which were septenary Sabbaths, five 
days before the Migrorgodesh, the holy con- 
vocation which introduced the feast of taber- 
nacles. This great fact, while it refutes the 
notion that seventh is an inseparable sense of 
Sabbath, shows with the utmost clearness that 
any day to which God applies the name has all 
possible sacredness and lawfulness. 

A little above it is stated that Abib (Kisan 
after the great captivity) and Tisri have the 
same number of days and Sabbaths in the same 
order. For the reader's convenience I will 
transcribe the Mosaic calendar, giving the Sab- 
baths in every month. 



58 



TEE SAB BATE. 

THE MOSAIC CALENDAR. 



Abib-Nisan (Nissan) has Sabbaths. 

Zif-Ijar (lyar) 

Sivan 

Thamrauz (Tarauz) 

Ab(Av) 

Elul (Elool) 

Tisri-EUiMiiim (Tishru) 

Bul-Marchesvan (Chesvan) 

Caslen (Kislev) 

Thebet (Tevise) , 

Shebet (Shevat) 

Adar 



1 


8 


15 


12 


29 


6 


13 


20 


27 




4 


11 


18 


25 




2| 9 


16 


23 


30 


1 


14 


21 


28 




5 


12 


19 


26 




1 


8 


15 


22 


29 


6 


13 


20 


27 




4| 11 


18 


25 




2 9 


16 


23 


30 


1\ 14 


21 


28 




5 


I ^^ 


19 


26 


•• 



Elul, the sixth of the Mosaic calendar, has 
thirtj-two days; Adar, the last month of the 
sacred year, has thirty-two or thirty-nine days. 
In the lattei- case it has five Sabbaths, the fifth 
of which occurs on the thirty-third. 

The foregoing table I transcribe from a 
valuable work entitled The Christian Sabbath, 
Viewed in the Light of Scripture, Chronology, 
and History, and the Claims of Sabbatarians 
Shown to be Untenable. By Kev. D. B. Byers, 
with an introduction by Bishop Dubs, D.D. ; 
published by W. F. Schneider, 214-220 Wood- 
land Avenue, Cleveland, O. I give in parentheses 
the more modern Jewish spelling of the names. 



THE SABBATH. 59 

It will be seen that the first and seventh 
months begin with the Sabbaths, have the same 
number of Sabbaths and Sabbaths falling nec- 
essarily on the same days. The first day of the 
passover was always a Sabbath, and always fell 
on the fifteenth of Abib. The first day of the 
feast of tabernacles was also Sabbath, and 
always fell on the fifteenth of Tizri. These 
feasts and the distinctive Sabbaths associated 
with them were confined to one people in their 
preparatory history, and passed away, as to any 
obligation which they conveyed, with the dis- 
pensation of which they were parts. 



60 THE SABBATK 



CHAPTER lY. 
The Sabbath Law. 

I HEARTILY indorse the strongest sentences, 
on both sides of this controversy, with respect 
to the universal need, practicabihty, educative 
utility, sacredness, and perpetual obligation of 
the Sabbath. The knowledge of God cannot be 
perpetuated without such a day, nor can vital 
godliness flourish where it is lightly esteemed. 
The Church is to-day suffering serious enfeeble- 
ment for want of a well-kept Sabbatli, The 
institute is for man as man. It would have been 
needed had our first parents and tlieir posterity 
continued in innocency. It is absolutely indis- 
pensable now. But an institution so necessary to 
human weal, yet so often crossing to greed and 
the love of pleasure, could not be left to caprice 
or " the light of nature." Its experienced and 
proclahned physical, mental, moral, social, do- 



THE SABBATH. 61 

mestic, and political benefits do not deter men 
from desecration. The " Continental Sabbath" — 
much better than none — is a striking proof of 
the need of the distinct recognition of the 
authority of underlying law. In all human 
experience on the high plane of Christianity law 
must assert itself, and prepare the way, before 
love will supersede the demand for its enforce- 
ment. There must be a Sabbath law. The need 
is profound, beneficent, universal, imperative. 

WHERE SHALL WE FIND IT? 

Let us recall the sublime mission and divine 
guardianship of the Hebrews. Doubtless many 
things important to them, but not requisite to 
show " the footprints of God in human history," 
do not appear in the record. Only the great 
particulars are given. Glance at these. At 
midnight the death-blast swept through all the 
dwellings of the Egj'ptians. At dawn the 
Hebrews commenced their journey. The line of 
marcli was marked out for them. From Kameses 
to Succoth ; from Succoth to Etham in the edge 
of the wilderness ; from Etham they turned again 



62 THE SABBATH. 

unto Pihahiroth, " whicli is before Baalzeplion," 
and "pitched before Migdol," near the sea. 
Here they discovered that they were pursued, 
and here the sea was divided. 

It has been inconclusively argued that the 
fleeing host rested a whole day at Succoth for 
purposes of Sabbath-keeping and thankful sacri- 
fices. From this assumption is drawn the infer- 
ence that the sixteenth of Abib was the Sunday 
of the Egyptians and the patriarchal Sabbath of 
the Hebrews. The large element of speculation 
renders this argument valueless for sober pur- 
poses of proof. The fact that the sixteenth was 
Sunday is not disputed.^ But, that fact con- 
ceded, the question remains broadly open 
whether the one party would have postponed 
their angry pursuit, or the other their alarmed 
flight, on that account. And the theory that the 
Hebrews tarried at Succoth to sanctify a proper 
patriarchal Sabbath, besides being wholly gratu- 
itous, is negated by the certainty already estab- 
lished that, up to that time, they had kept 
Sabbath only as the sun's-day. The incident of 
their baking bread from the dough brought in 



THE SABBATH. 63 

their kneading-troughs from Rameses was simply 
a matter of sumptuary necessity. 

The fugitives had journeyed at least three 
days, with whatever intervals of rest, before 
their pursuers came in sight. ]N"um, xxxiii, 3-8. 
It must be remembered that the Egyptians had 
their dead to bury, even "all their first-born 
which the Lord had smitten among them ; " then 
to get " six hundred chosen chariots, and all the 
chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of 
them, and all the horses and chariots of Pharaoh, 
and his horsemen and his army " into marching 
array. They must have been in eager and wrath- 
ful haste, to pursue so soon. The king thought 
he had his runaways hemmed in by the wilder- 
ness and the sea, and by great expedition he 
might capture them near home. In such an 
exigence it is not probable that either party 
suspended exertion for a worship-day. 

What a scheme of object-teaching God pro- 
vided for this people ! After the divided sea 
came Mara, manna, Rephidim, and the great 
victory over Amalek. What a destiny must be 
in prospect for a people under such tutelage ! 



64 THE SABBATH. 

At length, on the fifteentli of tlie third month, 
tliey came into the wilderness of Sinai. Here 
they received such communications and beheld 
such wonders as were never before vouchsafed to 
man. Here were given them minute directions 
for building, furnishing, and frequenting tlieir 
tabernacle ; the order and manner of their an- 
nual feasts ; statutes and judgments for the reg- 
ulation of their lives ; directions concerning the 
tribes and nations they were to pass or encounter ; 
specified penalties for a long list of offenses ; 
promises of special providential interpositions in 
the exigencies of the journey they had under- 
taken ; the ordination of a priesthood and the 
appointment of sacrifices and sacred vestments — 
all of which ceased when Christ entered into the 
Holy of Holies by his own blood, and became 
our High-priest in heaven — and an instructive 
but burdensome code of ceremonial law, which 
lost its significance when Jesus died and rose 
again. These statutes, judgments, and ordinances 
were adapted to the condition and mission of 
this one people, and could not be made to fit any 
other. They w^ere of the nature of special legis- 



THE SABBATH. 65 

lation. See Exod. xxiv to xxxii ; also parallel 
chapters in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, 

It is too obvious to require argument that 
many of these statutory regulations were wise, 
timely, and practicable only for this one people, 
and were destined to pass away with the dispen- 
sation to which they appertained. But there was 
a body of Constitutional Law committed to 
Israel in trust for all mankind. This code was 
not \vi'itten by- Moses on parchment or papyrus, 
but by the finger of God on tables of stone. 
The Ten "Words, Ten Commandments, Decalogue, 
is applicable to all people in all times. It is fun- 
damentally necessary to the order and happiness 
of the race in all lands, under all changes of gov- 
ernment, laws, language, and education. The 
great nations have recognized its vital value and 
builded their systems of jurisprudence upon it. 
Its philosophy, breadth, and completeness are the 
wonder and admiration of the wise. It is unlike 
the statutory and ceremonial codes in that it 
postulates no particular peoj^le, is limited by its 
relations to no particular dispensation, commands 
no sacrifices or ceremonial observances adjusted 



66 THE SABBATH. 

to a j)articular chapter of history, has no penal- 
ties attached, and in its structural plan is incon^ 
testably framed for universal use. 

In tliis code we find : 

First. The recognition of one God. This 
unifies truth, science, righteousness. 

Second. The non-use of images. This fore- 
stalls the debasement of worship, the ignobleness 
of idolatry, and the degradation of mind. 

Third. The reverential use of the Divine 
Name. This prevents the lightness and blas- 
phemy which tend to impair and destroy the 
sense of the majesty, holiness, glory, presence, 
and power of the Almighty. 

Fourth. A day in perpetual recurrence, spe- 
cially devoted to the perpetuation and spread of 
the knowledge of God, his works, will, and provi- 
dence, to be preceded by six days of labor. 

Fifth. Eespect and obedience toward parents. 
This is the best safeguard of domestic peace and 
civil loyalty and good citizenship. 

Sixth. Murder and all tliat leads to murder, 
the taking of the life out of life, is forbidden. 

Seventh. The invasion of connubial sanctity 



THE SABBATH. 67 

and indulgence in all sexual impurity are for- 
bidden. 

Eighth. The proliibition of the unpermitted 
and uncompensated appropriation of what is 
another's. 

Ninth. False witness forbidden. 

Tenth. Covetousness, "which is idolatry," is 
interdicted. 

A close study of the Decalogue will convince 
the reader that, while every command is in itself 
indispensable to a high civilization, every one is 
also necessary to the full use of every other. 
But the Fourth is so related to all the others 
that they stand or fall with it. "Without a 
periodic day sacred to appropriate teaching the 
knowledge of God would soon be lost, and idol- 
atry and crusliing superstitions reign. Thus with- 
out a Sabbath the three preceding precepts of the 
First Table would be unavailing for good. It is 
equally clear that, as to their import and effec- 
tiveness, the Sabbath is an essential condition also 
of the fulfillment of the six precepts of the Sec- 
ond Table, M^hich regulate the conduct of man 
toward man. The knowledge of duty must jDre- 



68 THE SABBATH. 

cede its performance ? and how shall they hear 
without a teacher? And how shall one teach 
without a time and opportunity ? 

The fourth commandment, then, is the nexus 
which unites the three preceding precepts, which 
look Godward, and the six following, which look 
man ward, into a symmetrical whole, thus bring- 
ing God and man into relation under a covenant 
of law. The loss of it would be the direst calam- 
ity, and the abuse of it is flagrant unwisdom and 
blind misanthropy. The notion that it is of the 
nature of a Hebrew statute and has expired by 
luuitation, appears to me as mischievous as it is 
baseless. Its repeal would be the virtual repeal 
of the Decalogue. 

Here, then, we find the Sabbath Law, a law 
as uncliangeable as the nature of man and the 
beneficence of God. It is the core of the Con- 
stitution of constitutions. It is a vital part of 
the basis of free government, the charter of 
human rights, the matrix of aggressive and be- 
neficent civilizations. The life to which the 
fourth commandment leads is the right life. 
Any day to which this commandment appHes is 



THE SABBATH. 69 

a true Sabbath of the beast's rest, the toiler's 
respite, the rich man's recall from worldliness, 
the home's reunion and delights, the sanctuary's 
resounding praise and ennobling worship. With 
the Hebrews it applied to the day of their escape 
from Egypt in perpetual septenary recurrence, 
and not less to the tenth day of the seventh 
month. Both these Sabbaths were new and 
national, yet they rested under the full force of 
the Sabbath law. If at any time and for any 
reason it has pleased God to restore the pristine 
Sabbath, or put Sabbath sanctity upon another 
day, that, too, is covered by all the sacred sanc- 
tity which the law conveys. That if the day is 
changed the law must be changed, is a fallacy so 
obvious as scarcely to escape the imputation of 
puerihty. 



70 THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER V. 
The Law of the Sabbath. 

WE have the Sabbath law. Now what is 
the law of the Sabbath ? The law exists 
in form only until we reach a true interpretation. 
Our inquiry is, therefore, of the essence of the 
controversy. If the repeal of the fourth com- 
mandment would be, practically and in effect, 
the repeal of the Decalogue, it is vain to think 
of maintaining a holy Sabbath by inference, con- 
venience, physical benefits, public decency, pa- 
tristic example, or what not. Where there is no 
law there is ' no transgression. License never 
leads the wild horse into harness nor the sinner 
to righteousness. Law must impel till love con- 
strains. What, then, are the contents of the 
law of the Sabbath ? 

First, it requires six days of labor — honest, 
virtuous, useful labor. The lawgiver cannot 
demand or approve work the legitimate effect of 



THE SABBATH. VI 

wMcli is harmful. Tlie man wlio follows an evil 
business counterworks the spirit of the whole 
law. The idler breaks the Sabbath law through 
all the work-days of the week, however sancti- 
moniously he may treat the Sabbath. Six days 
of well-directed toil every week are enough for 
all the authentic needs of society in the highest 
advancement. 

After six days of labor comes the day of rest. 
To the beast of burden it is physical rest. To 
the man it is rest of body and mind, spiritual re- 
freshment, and opportunity to increase his 
knowledge of divine things. This is a universal 
law, because it meets a universal need. "Zea? 
stat dum ratio rncmetP If a universal law, 
obedience must be practicable in every latitude 
and longitude. It must also be possible for plain 
minds to understand it. "Wherever there are 
solar days to regulate industrial life, there the 
law plainly requires that every seventh day should 
be set apart as sacred to devout uses. This is 
true in England, China, America. Yet the 
devout in these several countries do not keep, 
and practically cannot keep, the identical twenty- 



72 THE S ABB ATE. 

four hours wliieli make the same day in exact 
astronomical series. To do this is practically im- 
possible ; first, for the reason that no man knows 
the starting-point, and, second, the shape of the 
planet makes such a construction of the law un- 
reasonable in the last degree. Saturday-Sabbath 
writers wrestle bravely with this insuperable 
obstacle to their exposition, but utterly in vain. 
The Outlook^ the ablest of Saturday-Sabbath 
periodicals, and J. N. Andrews, author of His- 
tory of the Sabhath and First of the Week — both 
works as acute as any on that side — pass it over 
glibly with the statement that the natural course 
of peopling the planet is with the course of the 
sun, from east to west, and that commerce has 
agreed upon a line of longitude where the day 
shall change ; and it is a pity if religion cannot 
do as much as commerce ! The reader must not 
take offense at the flippancy of such an inconse- 
quent evasion. The writers named, and some 
others of the same school, are really keen, capa- 
ble men. They have done the very best that 
could be done without abandoning their theory. 
The explanation of so utter a failure lies in the 



THE SABBATK 73 

fact that the theory is radically and incurably 
wrong. 

Is it true that the natural course of peopling 
the earth is from east to west ? There have been 
strong tides of emigration and travel eastward. 
Cannot people going eastward keep the Sabbath 
as obediently as people going westward ? Does 
the Sabbath law specify or imply a necessary 
direction of spreading humanity, or certain lines 
of longitude, or certain agreements of navigators 
in the interest of commerce and the calendar ? 
Suppose that two devout Saturday-Sabbath men 
should set out from San Francisco, say, and travel 
in opposite directions till they meet on the oppo- 
site side of the globe. They are a day apart. 
How shall they reconcile their differences, both 
having conscientiously kept seventh-day from 
the start ? They must adhere to arithmetic and 
keep two seventh-days, or, like men of common 
sense, conclude that the law of the Sabbath is to 
be rationally interpreted, and so harmonize their 
count to the shape and motions of the earth. 

Again, a universal law must be obeyable in all 
latitiides where men live and travel. What 



74 THE SABBATH. 

shall the inhabitants of the far north do ? They 
have a seventh solar day only once in seven years. 
Will one long day's rest and worship in seven 
years meet the demands of the law ? These peo- 
ple have customary and convenient divisions of 
time, established by experience, measured by 
sleeping and waking, eating and fasting, working 
and resting. Does not every one unbhnded by 
a false theory see that if the Esquimaux or 
Greenlanders devoutly consecrate every seventh 
of these convenient and usual portions of time to 
rest and worsliip they obey the law of the Sab- 
bath as strictly as our Saturday-Sabbath brethren 
imagine they are doing? 

Again. It is a famihar history that the first in- 
habitants of Pitcairn's Island, made up of the 
mutineers of the ship Bounty and the heathen 
women they picked up on their way, were con- 
verted through the use of a single Bible found 
in a seaman's chest. They became a God-fearing 
people, and, of course, kept tlie Sabbath ; for the 
teaching of the word is plain. They had reached 
the island from the east, and ke])t their Sabbath 
by regular count. A Britisli ship reached the 



THE SABBATH. 75 

island on Saturday, counting from the west, and 
found Adams and his people devoutly kee^Ding 
the day holy to the Lord. Which were right, 
the discoverers or the discovered ? Suppose now 
that a number of the sailors of the visiting ship 
had decided to cast in their lot with the happy 
islanders — would devout respect for the law of 
the Sabbath have required each party strenuously 
to hold to its day, and thus confuse, distract, and 
destroy the order and quiet of both days ? Com- 
mon sense, the spirit of the law, and the character 
of the Lawgiver commandingly suggest that 
either party might have yielded its day and 
adopted the otlier's without infracting the law, 
dishonoring God, or injuring their own souls. 
As the great body of the Christian world was 
keeping the Sunday-Sabbath the islanders did 
wisely and Christianly to change their day and 
come into harmony with general Christian usage. 
And yet again. The early navigators used to 
change the day at Callao because that was a usual 
place of meeting. More accurately, and by com- 
mon consent, the point of change is now 180° 
east or west of Green\vich. Let us suppose two 



76 THE SABBATH. 

ship-loads of Saturday-Sabbath people saihng in 
opj)Osite directions, about to meet at the 180th de- 
gree of longitude. The weather is fine. The ships 
are two hours apart. An observation is taken to 
decide whether it is Saturday or Sunday on board 
the ship east of the line, and whether it is Friday 
or Saturday west of the line. They have counted 
the days, and by count it is Saturday on one and 
Friday on the other. If clouds and storm pre- 
vail it is impossible to settle the grave question 
for two days. It clears up, and the observation 
shows that the ship from the east crossed the 
line twenty-four hours ago, and the people on 
board have been keeping Sunday, that " wicked 
heathen day," while the other ship crossed the 
line on Friday and has made secular use of 
sacred time ! " Commerce has agreed upon a 
hue where the day shall change ; and it is a pity 
if religion cannot do as much as commerce ! " 
But no sooner does " religion do as much as 
commerce " does in this sensible way than the 
seventh-day theory, by logical necessity, goes by 
the board. All that is left is a relative, not an 
absolute seventli-day. And the inference is irre- 



THE SABBATH. 77 

sistible, either that God has set geography and 
necessity at war with the law of the Sabbath or 
the law of the Sabbath requires a relative seventh- 
day — that is, every seventh day in every place ; 
which Sunday-Sabbath people may and do keep 
as truly as their brethren who accuse them of 
wearing the " mark of tlie beast." 

Superfluous as it will appear to intelligent 
readers, let us carry the supposition a stage^ or 
two farther. Suppose that the two ships' com- 
panies, through death or incompetence of officers, 
loss or defect of instruments, or any other cause, 
should miss the line and pass entirely around to 
the place of starting. To their confusion and 
horror they find themselves two days apart. 
Both have counted with conscientious accuracy, 
and both, as they fondly believe, have kept the 
seventh day, yet they have been driven to prof- 
anation by cogency of geography. 

Take one more supposition. Let the ship 
sailing eastward bear Saturday-Sabbath and that 
sailing westward Sunday-Sabbath passengers. 
The one will have gained and the other lost, say, 
twelve hours. It may easily happen, with even 



78 THE SABBATH. 

less days of cloud and storm than have often 
prevailed, that both cross the line together, both 
keeping the same day, the one sure it is Satur- 
day and the other equally sure that it is Sunday. 
Is astronomy ii-reconcilable with the fourth com- 
mandment ? 

It is idle to urge that the same embarrass- 
ments beset the Sunday-Sabbath scheme. The 
basal theory is wholly different. With intelli- 
gent Christians of the Sunday-Sabbath school it 
is not the first or seventh day in an absolute 
identity. It is every first day, if you please, in 
relation to the Hebrew week, every seventh day 
in relation to six preceding days of labor, and 
every seventh day counting from itself. 

It may be argued witli superficial plausibihty 
that, granting the interpretation contended for, 
Saturday-Sabbath keepers are still riglit, inas- 
much as they keep every seventh day in every 
part of the world. 

The answer is obvious : 

1. By the terms of tlie defense they keep 
every seventh day no more than Sunday-Sab- 
bath people. 



THE SABBATH. 79 

2. They keep, relatively, a Hebrew Sabbatli 
witli only one of the four reasons which under- 
lay that Sabbath. 

3. They are a fraction less than seven tenths 
of one per cent, of the population of this coun- 
try, and if they yield the seventh-day idea it is 
obviously wrong that they should remain an ele- 
ment of disharmony in Christian communities, 
thus weakening the force of Sabbath-keeping 
sentiment, and, as far as their influence extends, 
disturbing the industrial order of week-days and 
impairing the quiet and comfort of their neigh- 
bors who keep the Lord's day holy. 

4. As soon as they place their justification on 
this ground their absurd and conceited denunci- 
ation of the vast majority who observe the 
Sunday-Sabbath becomes consciously false and 
wicked. 

5. The form and motions of the earth compel 
an accommodation of time. Is it not as much 
in keeping with the character of the God and 
Father of the spirits of all flesh to believe that the 
unity and harmony of Christian believers should 
be deemed suflicient to justify and demand an 



80 THE SABBATH. 

accommodation of usage with respect to the day 
to be held sacred, seeing that neither is, nor can 
be, THE seventh day in every longitude, and one 
as much as the other is the seventh day in sep- 
tenary order. 

6. And if agreement is to be sought, wliich 
ought to yield : the seven tenths of one per cent, 
or the ninety-nine and three tenths per cent? 
Let common sense, religion. Christian con- 
venience, the long-established date periods of 
Christian society, history, and nations, and the 
spirit of the Scriptures answer. If every small 
fraction may set apart a separate day, all in- 
dustry, all order of commerce, courts, and re- 
ligious social life are at an end. 

The law of the Sabbath, then, requires that 
every seventh usual and useful division of time 
be set apart as a Sabbath holy unto the Lord. In 
it we are not to do our o^vn work, nor seek our 
own pleasure, unless our pleasure is to worship 
and obey the Lord of the Sabbath. Ko man 
knows or can know that he has the original 
starting-point and the identical seventh day. 
Few will contend that the days of creation were 



THE SABBATH. 81 

solar days. Paradise may have been at tlie 
north pole, as ingeniously maintained by Dr. 
Warren. It is certain that, in the strict astro- 
nomical sense, but a small fraction of the race can 
have the day. All others must have it in a rel- 
ative and movable sense. God's law is addressed 
to human intelligence and is adjusted to the 
necessities and innocent conveniences of human 
life. This is an abiding, universal, irrepealable 
law. The history of the Hebrews makes plain 
a distinction between statutory and constitu- 
tional laws. There were annual Sabbaths con- 
nected -with their great feasts. Two of these 
annual feasts could not be celebrated until after 
they reached Canaan. Even the Sabbath of the 
great day of atonement was temporary as be-: 
longing to a peculiar people and a preparatory 
dispensation. Yet these " Sabbaths of the land," 
in their times, rested under all the binding force 
of the fourth commandment. The law of the 
Sabl)ath would abide when all exceptional Sab- 
baths should pass away. 

Is not the Decalogue the law alluded to in 
Matt, xxii, 36-40; Eom. iii, 31 ; vii, 12 ; viii, 4; 



82 THE SABBATH. 

xiii, 10 ? Are not these the commandments in 
view in Matt, v, 19, 20 ; xix, 16-22 ; xxii, 36-40 ; 
Mark xii, 28-34 1 St, James puts the essential 
unity of the law into a sentence : " Whosoever 
shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one 
[commandment] he is guilty of all." The 
essence of the law is the sovereign will, which, 
like a golden cord, runs through all the com- 
mandments. To break any one of them we 
must break the cord. 

Certain statutory provisions of the Hebrew 
code stand in such relation to the terms of the 
law as to confuse the thought of the superficial 
reader. As samples see Exod. xxi, 15-17: " He 
that smiteth father or mother shall surely be 
put to death." The law is, " Honor thy father 
and thy mother, that it may be well with thee, 
and thy days may be long upon the land." By 
blending the two both are misinterpreted. 
Again : A man was found picking up sticks on 
the Sabbath and was adjudged to death under 
the statute. The law is, " Remember the Sab- 
bath day to keep it holy — make it a rest to beast 
and servant and stranger." By confounding the 



THE SABBATH. S3 

two we miss the purpose of both and make " a 
cruel Jewish Sabbath " out of the beneficent 
fourth commandment. 

A httle inteUigent reading will make it clear 
to the humblest capacity that these statutory ex- 
pedients, resorted to in an exigence and confined 
to a peculiar people in a pecuhar condition, are 
no ]3art of the universal law. 



84 THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER VI. 

A Change of the Sabbath Foreshadowed 
AND Foretold. 

WE need only to glance at Israelitish history 
to discover' how inseparately prosperity 
and calamity were connected respectively with 
the keejjing or desecration of the Sabbath. As 
lung as they honored the Sabbath God honored 
them. As often as they polluted it they were 
rebuked, scattered, and peeled. It is a strong 
proof of their stiff-neckedness that never until 
after the great captivity did they show a stead- 
fast loyalty to the holy day. Even then — as the 
spendthrift in youth becomes a miser in age — 
these strange people loaded down with super- 
stitions and unauthorized exactions the day 
which they had so often defiled with their idol- 
atries. 

Along the ages of their unique history we catch 
glimpses of a coming supersession of their feasts, 



THE SABBATH. 85 

sacrifices, and set days. They are manifestly 
designed as vehicles to carry forward a divine 
purpose for a limited time. As Canaan was but 
a shadow of " the better country, even the heav- 
enly ; " so the whole ceremonial and representa- 
tive economy of Israelitish life was made up of 
types and shadows of better things to come. 

One supreme promise runs through history, 
discipline, miracle, prophecy, and sacrifices. All 
lights focalize in the coming of the Messiah, 
And in connection with the central beam of this 
glorious prospect are many side-lights. Among 
them are anticipatory glimpses of a coming dis- 
pensation in which the work of redemption 
should be commemorated in surpassing prefer- 
ence to the work of creation, and the glory of 
the "ministration of death" that shone on the 
face of Moses should pale in the light of " the 
glory that excelleth." 2 Cor. iii, Y-10. As a 
sample the learned agree that Isaiah Ixv, lY, 18, 
(cf. Isa. li, 16; Ixvi, 22; Ezek. xliii, 27,) re- 
lates to the New Testament Church in its mili- 
tant state, in which the high figure of "new 
heavens and new earth" should be exempli- 



86 THE SABBATH. 

fied and Jerusalem be created " a rejoicing and 
her people a joy." This new dispensation was 
so far to outshine the former that that should 
not " come into mind." 

Of the scripture just instanced Dr. Dwight 
says : " This passage appears to me to place the 
fact in the clearest light that a particular, superior, 
and extraordinary commemoration of the work 
of redemption, by the Christian Church in all its 
various ages, was a part of the good pleasure of 
God, and was designed by him to be accom- 
plished in the course of his providence. But 
there neither is nor ever was any public, solemn 
commemoration of this work by the Christian 
Church, except that which is holden on *the first 
day of the week, or the day in which Christ 
completed his great work by his resurrection 
from the dead. This prophecy has, therefore, 
been unfulfilled, so far as I can see, unless it has 
been fulfilled in this very manner. But if it has 
been fulfilled in this manner, then the manner 
of fulfilling it has been agreeable to the ti'ue in- 
tention of the prophecy and to the good pleas- 
ure of God expressed in it, and is, therefore, that 



THE SABBATH. 87 

very part of his providence wliicli is here un- 
folded to mankind." 

A clearer light is thrown into the forward dis- 
tance by Psa. cxviii, 22, 23, 24 : " The stone 
which the builders rejected is become the head 
of the corner. This is the Lord's doing ; it is 
marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which 
THE Lord hath made ; we will rejoice and be 
glad in it." Six times in the JN'ew Testament 
this scripture is applied to our Lord. See Matt 
xxi, 42 ; Mark xii, 10 ; Luke xx, 17 ; Acts iv, 11 ; 
Eph. ii, 20 ; 1 Pet. ii, 4, 7. 

Of this Psalm Dr. Hibbard says : " It is pro- 
phetic of Messiah and was the last of the Psalms 
composing the great hallel or chant which the 
Jews in latter days sung at the passover." 

Bishop Horn calls it " a triumphal hymn, sung 
by King Messiah at the head of the Israel of God 
on occasion of his resurrection from the dead." 

Matthew Henry, on v. 24, says : " It [the day] 
may be fitly understood of the Christian Sabbath, 
which we sanctify in remembrance of Christ's 
resurrection, when the rejected stone began to be 
exalted." The learned divine then proceeds at 



88 THE SABBATH. 

length to discourse with rare and beautiful force on 
" the day," its blessedness, duties, and privileges. 

Robert Hall lias a sermon of great power on 
"The Lord's day commemorative of Christ's 
resurrection," in which he says of the Psalm 
under view : " No doubt can be entertained of 
its referring, in its fullest and sublimest sense, 
to the person and kingdom of the Redeemer. . . . 
On this day [the Christian Sabbath] the purchase 
of our redemption was completed. On this day 
the character of Christ was illu'striously vindi- 
cated and his pretensions fully asserted and sus- 
tained. This- day afforded to Christ a signal tri- 
umph over his enemies. On this day our Lord 
gained an everlasting victory over the last enemy 
and triumphed over death in that nature which 
had always been subject to his dominion before. 
On this day w^e are called to rejoice in that sure 
and certain prospect w^hich the resurrection of 
Christ affords to all true believers of ascending 
with him to heaven and of their partaking with 
him of his glory." 

Dr. Isaac Barrow quotes this Psalm as appli- 
cable to Christ. 



THE SABBATH. 89 

Sanrin uses v. 24 as a text for a sermon on tlie 
resurrection, in course of which he remarks that 
" the ancient Jews understood the Psahn of liim, 
and, therefore, made use of it, formerly, among 
their prayers for liis advent." 

Meyer, Bengel, "Whedon, and numberless 
others recognize the authenticity of the inter- 
pretation. Beyond question it is sustained by the 
consensus of Christian scholarship. 

Such a magnification of the day of triumph 
ovSr death an d^ demonstration of immortahty ac- 
cords *with the tone and trend of all I^ew Testa- 
ment references to the resurrection. Jesus was 
" declared to be the Son of God with power, ac- 
cording to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrec- 
tion of [from] the dead." Eom. i, 4. (Cf. John 
xi, 25 ; Acts i, 22 ; ii, 31 ; iv, 2, 23 ; xvii, 18, 
32 ; xxiii, 6 ; 1 Cor. xv, 13.) The fact of our 
Lord's resurrection is made illustrious above all 
other facts and the day above all other days. It 
is a day worthy of ceaseless commemoration ; 
which commemoration it has had in the joyful 
and adoring observation and worship of the 
Christian Sabbath, and in no other way. The 



90 THE SABBATH. 

Jews do not celebrate it. The Jewish Sabbath 
cannot commemorate it. The Saturday-Sabbath 
j)eople — even tliough they claim to have no su- 
persensuous nature, no souls or spirits, and to 
depend solely on the resurrection of the body for 
the hope of future conscious being — do not com- 
memorate it. The great jjivotal fact of the 
scheme of redem^^tion is suffered to remain among 
unmonumented, uncelebrated events, except so 
far as the perj^etual recurrence of the Christian 
Sabbath brings it to mind. • 

Would any important purpose be served by 
substituting the Christian for the Hebrew Sab- 
bat! i ? Bearing in mind the distinction clearly 
made between the Sabbath and the day on which 
it was celebrated ; are there in view any cogent 
reasons to justify and demand the change ? 

Among the reasons which commend themselves 
to our intelligence are the following : 

1. The resurrection is constantly set forth as 
the sujireme fact and completion of our Lord's 
provisional redeeming work. "We are begotten 
again to a lively hope by it. — 1 Pet. i, 3. Its 
constant commemoration is essential to the con- 



THE SABBATH. 91 

tinned faith and lioly living of the Church. — 1 
Cor. XV, 13-19. But in no other way has it been, 
or will it be, fittingly and continuously celebrated 
than by worship and praise on resurrection day. 

2. The apostles and early Christians could not 
worship with the Jews on Sabbath without ap- 
2)earing to countenance rites, ceremonies, sacri- 
fices, and teachings which denied Christ as the 
crucified and risen Saviour, who " by his own 
blood entered once into the holy place, having 
obtained etern^d redemption for us." 

3. There was a tendency to commit the sin of 
Judaizing, against which the disciples were zeal- 
ously warned. The Jewish Sabbath was so as- 
sociated with the rites of the ceremonial law — a 
law fulfilled and annulled by Christ's death— as 
greatly to increase the menacing peril of the in- 
fant Church. Any countenance given to Juda- 
ism, after the resurrection, was by so much a 
betrayal of the Lord. 

4. The visible recognition of the divine 
sovereignty of the risen Christ as Lord of the 
Sabbath day, and, therefore, of all days and all 
men, could not otherwise be so well accomplished 



92 THE SABBATH. 

as by the weekly pnl3lic worship offered him on 
the day of his triumph over death and hades. 

5. It would be a significant and strong wall of 
separation between the Church of the risen 
Christ and the exhausted and displaced " cov- 
enant of works," to which its members were never 
to return. 

These reasons have great weight, and were so 
regarded from the earhest times, in proof of 
which I need not pause here to cite authorities. 
Add to these reasons and to the forelookings of 
prophets and Psalmist the following list of 
" teaching facts," which, I submit, can be ac- 
counted for on no other theory than that the 
keeping of resurrection-day is agreeable to the 
will of Him who holdeth the issues of life in his 
hand : 

1. It is certain that our Lord, who had power 
to lay down his life and to take it again, chose to 
lie in the tomb throughout the Jewish Sabbath, 
leaving his enemies loud in their triumph and 
his disciples dumb in their despair. 

2. It is certain that Christ rose from the dead 
on the morning after the Je^vish Sabbath, thus 



THE SABBATH. 93 

completing the provisional work of redemption, 
filling his murderers with consternation, certify- 
ing his Godhead, demonstrating the divinity of 
his mission, inspiring his disciples with uncon- 
querable courage, opening the gates of hades, 
giving the world a living hope, and making the 
resm'rection and the life visible to heaven, earth, 
and hell. 

3. It is certain that after his resurrection Jesus 
met with his disciples on two successive Sunday- 
Sabbaths, and probably on at least three others. 

4. It is certain that the disciples began imme- 
diately to meet on the Sunday-Sabbath, to com- 
memorate his death and resurrection. 

5. It is certain that the Scriptures give no 
intimation of our Lord's meeting with his disci- 
ples, or with others, on the Jewish Sabbath after 
his resurrection, although it had always been his 
practice to attend the synagogue on that day. Thus 
he put special honor upon First-day — an honor 
which his followers could hardly have interpreted 
otherwise than they appear to have done, as mark- 
ing it as the Sabbath of the new dispensation. 

6. It is certain that on First-day the dispensa- 



94 THE SABBATH. 

tion of the spirit was fully ushered in at pente- 
cost. Pentecost always fell on the morrow after 
the seventh Sabbath, counting from the morrow 
after the Sabbath of the passover. Lev, xxiii, 
15, 16: " And ye shall count unto you from 
the morrow after the Sabbath, from the day that 
ye brought the sheaf of the wave-offering ; seven 
Sabbaths shall be complete : even unto the mor- 
row after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number 
fifty days ; and ye shall offer a new meat-offering 
unto the Lord." It must of necessity always 
have fallen on Sunday-Sabbath, as any one will 
see by counting. 

7. It is certain that the disciples at Troas were 
accustomed to assemble to break bread on the 
Sunday-Sabbath. — Acts xx, 7. 

8. It is certain that the Corinthian Christians 
were to have in readiness their gifts for the poor 
on First-day. — 1 Cor. xvi, 2. 

9. It is certain that St. John, " in the spirit," 
under divine inspiration, pronounced First-day 
the Lord's-day. (I have studied with amazement 
the futile attempt of Andrews and his imitators 
to read a different meaning into the text.) 



THE SABBATH. 95 

10. It is certain that a very large and enlight- 
ened portion of the Christian world accept and 
reverence Sunday as the true Sabbath — a body 
which includes a vast preponderance of the 
learning and devotion of the Church of the 
living God. 

11. It is certain that, through the religious use 
of the Sunday-Sabbath, the greatest social, civil, 
domestic, and spiritual blessings have come to our 
race. From which fact it is inevitable to infer 
that the First-day, relatively to the Jewish we^^k, 
is the true Sabbath, or God has granted measure- 
less blessings upon an almost measureless viola- 
tion of the Sabbath law and profanation of the 
Sabbath day. He has permitted a false day to be 
the spring of moral health and the center of 
moral and redemptive influences. 

12. It is certain that with the Sunday-Sabbath 
existing Christianizing agencies, to a well-nigh 
exclusive extent, stand or fall. 

To minds capable of weighing them these 
tremendous facts carry with them a resistless 
conclusion. And, in connection with them, we 
shall not fail to remind ourselves that, in the 



96 THE SABBATH. 

pre-advent liistory of Israel, great distinction 
was put upon the day following the Jewish Sab- 
bath, On that day the firstlings of the flocks 
and herds and the first-fruits of the fields were 
offered. Aaron and his sons were consecrated, 
and the temple was dedicated on that day. It 
was on Sunday that manna first fell, and on 
Sunday it ceased to fall, and the people ate of 
the old corn of the land of promise on the 
plain of Jericho. — Josh, v, 10, 11. 

On Sunday began the count from passover 
to pentecost ; and on Sunday pentecost always 
fell. As the primeval Sabbath was the first day 
of human history, so pentecost was the birthday 
of the Church of the risen Christ and the first 
day of man's history in the fully habilitated 
kingdom of God on earth. 

Before entering upon the next chapter of the 
argument let us briefly recapitulate. We have 
seen : 

That the days of creation were not, in any 
degree of probability, solar days. 

That a Sabbath made for man could not be 
the same as the Sabbath, in the sense of an 



THE SABBATH. 97 

identical twenty-four hours in an exact astronom- 
ical series from the time and place of its original 
institution. 

That the Sabbath was instituted, like marriage, 
in the time of man's innocency, and was one of 
the undergirders kid into the foundation of all 
orderly human lif e. 

That the arbitrary septennial division of time 
existed from the earliest ages and among all 
Eastern nations. 

That such a usage — having nothing in nature 
to suggest it — is rationally accounted for on the 
supposition that it descended from an authorita- 
tive and well-known beginning. 

That the week was crowned with a sacred day. 

That, in strong probability, the Sabean idol- 
atry — the adoration of the heavenly bodies, 
among which the sun was supreme — was the 
first corruption of primeval worship. 

That the devotees of this idolatry were sun- 
worshipers, giving only an inferior reverence to 
the planets. 

Tliat the Sun's-day is most reasonably assumed 
to be the perverted primeval Saljbath, as the sun 



98 THE SABBATH. 

took the place of the Creator, Siistainer, and 
Fructifier. 

That this form of false worship was prevalent 
before Job and Abraham. 

That Egyptians were sun-worshipers centuries 
before the Hebrews migrated into Mizraim. 

That during the entire period of the Hebrew 
residence in the land of the Nile the chief 
divinity of the Egyptians was the -sun, imaged 
by the golden bull, Apis, symbol of Osiris. 

That from the time of Joseph to the exode no 
hint ajDpears of a contrariety of custom between 
Egji^tians and Hebrews with respect to the chief 
day of worship. 

That the probability, arising from their situa- 
tion, that the Hebrew bondmen were sun-wor- 
shipers at the time of the exodus, is raised to a 
certainty by their conduct at Horeb ; which con- 
duct is interpreted and explained by the explicit 
words of Scripture, as seen in Josh, xxiv, 14; 
Psa. cvi, 19-22 ; Ezek. xx, 5-9 ; xxiii, 3 ; Acts 
vii, 41, 42. 

That, to separate them from the prevalent 
idolatry — to which for many generations their 



TEE SABBATH. 99 

descendants were inclined to return — they were 
given a new Sabbath — the day of their toilsome 
march from Kameses to Succoth — to commemo- 
rate their deliverance, their new covenant, and 
their setting-apart from all other peoples. 

That they had a Sabbath out of the septenary 
order. 

That Shabbath is the sacred proper name of a 
movable festival, of which name neither rest, 
nor seventh, nor week, nor all of them together, 
can be accepted as an adequate rendering. 

That Shabbath occurs one hundred and three 
times in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in every 
case, except the nine in which it is used to mark 
the rest of the land and years, it designates a day 
set apart for sacred uses. 

That our Lord chose to sleep in the tomb dur- 
ing the Jewish Sabbath, and to glorify the mor- 
row after that Sabbath by his reviviscence. 

That the " Day " was foretold by prophets and 
Psalmist. 

That on the day of his resurrection, and on 
the next First-day, he met his disciples in solemn 
conference. 



100 



THE SABBATH. 



That the disciples began immediatelj to meet 
on that day to celebrate his death and rejoice in 
his resurrection. 

That our Lord does not appear to have met 
with his "brethren" on the Jewish Sabbath 
after his resurrection. 

That the dispensation of the Spirit was ushered 
in and the kingdom of Christ set up on the 
Lord's day. 

Confidence may find sure footing on such a 
basis of facts. It must be an unhappily biased 
mind which fails to draw from such premises the 
commanding conclusion that the day of Christ's 
resurrection is the appointed and approved Sab- 
bath of the only wise God, our Saviour, who is 
over all blessed forever. 

But is there no explicit word in support of a 
doctrine so vital and a day so heralded, so com- 
memorated, and so favored of the God of provi- 
dence and grace ? 



TEE SABBATH. 101 



CHAPTER YII. 



The Lord of the Sabbath Made the Foee- 
SHADOWED Change, and the Holy Spirit 
Certifies It. 

ALEEADY we have seen foretokenings of a 
change. Now we come to the "words 
which the Holy Ghost teacheth." The first 
record to examine is Matt, xxviii, 1. This Gos- 
pel was doubtless written in Hebrew (Aramean), 
but it must have been early translated into 
Greek ; and since its record concerning the great 
question now in hand agrees with that of the 
other evangelists, we will begin with the sen- 
tence already indicated. It reads thus : Oipe 61 
aaftfiaruv, rrj eTTt(f)0)aKOvar] eig [Jiiav Gal3[3aTG)v, xi^de 
Mapia XI MaydaXrjv?], etc. — Opse di Sabbaton, te 
ejyijjhosTcousi eis mian SciUbaton, eltJie Maria e 
Magdalene, etc. — "At the end of the Sabbaths, 
as it began to dawn toward the first of the Sab- 
baths, came Mary the Magdalene," etc. The Ac- 



102 THE SABBATH. 

cepted Yersion reads it : " In the end of the 
Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first 
day of the week," etc. It appears presumptuous 
to question a reading so long and so generally 
acquiesced in. But is this a true translation ? Is 
it, in truth, a translation at aU? Siippose a 
Greek scholar, wdio knew nothing of "Hebraisms," 
were asked to read it into English, what would 
he make it ? " Day " and " week " are both sup- 
pUed, the latter, I must think, gratuitously ; for 
surely the aforesaid scholar would not find it in 
the text, nor implied by the text. That given 
above would appear to be a literal rendering. 

The principal reason assigned for tlie present 
reading is that it is a Hebraism. May I be per- 
mitted, with great deference, to express a clear 
con\action that the Hebrew of the Scriptures has 
no such idiom. It is true that from Sabbath to 
Sabbath is a week, and equally true that from 
any other day to the same day again is a week. 
But Shahhath never in itself means week. I am 
strongly confirmed in the view to which the 
Hebrew Bible had led me by correspondence 
which I have had with eminent scholars who 



THE SABBATH. 103 

have heretofore supported the other theory. The 
Hebrew has a specific term — Shabua — ^for week. 
See Gen. xxix, 27, 28 ; Exod. xxxiv, 22 ; Lev. 
xii, 5 ; Num. xxviii, 26 ; Deut. xvi, 9, 10, 16 ; 
2 Cliron, viii, 13 ; Jer. v, 24 ; Dan. ix, 24-27 ; 
X, 2, 3. Shabhath, on the other hand, occurs one 
hundred and three tunes, and never once, prop- 
erly speaking, is the name for week. 

"Contemporary usage" is pleaded as a last 
defense. It is true that the rabbins contemporary 
with the I^ew Testament writers used the form 
natj'mnN, nnB^n^Jtr, n'l^y'^ih^, EchadBashabbath — 
" One from the Sabbath." Shon Baslidbbaih — 
" Two from the Sabbath." Sheleshe Bashabbath 
— " Three from the Sabbath," etc. But contem- 
porary usage cannot avail, for these cogent rea- 
sons : 

First The evangelists are writing in Greek, 
which has no such form. 

Second. They are writing under inspiration for 
all peoples and times. 

Third. Both Hebrew (ancient) and Greek 
had familiar forms for expressing the day fol- 
lowing the Sabbath — thus, MimmacJiorath Ha- 



104 THE SABBATH. 

shabbafh in Hebrew, and tes epaurion ton Sab- 
haton in the Greek — "The morrow after the 
Sabbaths." 

Fourth. The Septnagint is " the mold in wliich 
tlie thoughts and exj^ressions of the apostles and 
evangehsts are cast," as it is the principal source 
whence they drew their quotations. But the 
Septuagint is a translation from ancient, and in 
most respects, admittedly accurate Hebrew manu- 
scripts. This appears to me to annul the plea of 
contemporary usage and to throw it out of court 
by force of a cureless anachronism. The ques- 
tion of substituting an idiomatic sense for an 
obvious translation must be settled solely by an 
appeal to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Sep- 
tuagint translation ; and such an appeal, I am 
fully convinced, will not sustain the accepted 
reading. 

The Septuagint follows the Hebrew with se- 
vere fidelity, using hehdmnas {e(idofiag) for Shahua^ 
week, as in Gen. xxix, 27, 28 ; Exod. xxxiv, 22 ; 
Lev. xii, 5 ; l^um. xxviii, 26 ; Dent. x\'i, 9, 10, 16 ; 
2 Chron. viii, 13 ; Dan. ix, 24-27 ; x, 2, 3. In 
Dan. X, 2, 3, it is weeks of days. 



THE SABBATH. 105 

On the other hand, when the Sabbath is re- 
ferred to as tlie Sabbath, the proper name — 
oa(3l3arov — is employed. Witness one hundred 
instances of its use, as follows : Exod. xvi, 
23, 25, 26, 29 ; xx, 8, 10 ; xxxi, 13, 14, 15, 16 ; 
XXXV, 2, 3 ; Lev. xvi, 31 ; xix, 3, 30 ; xxiii, 
3 % 15, 32 ^ 38 ; xxiv, 8 ; xxv, 2, 4, 6 ; xxvi, 
2, 34 ^ 35, 43; Kum. xv, 32; xxv, 9, 10; 
Deut. V, 12, 14, 15 ; 2 Kings iv, 23 ; xi, 5, 7, 9 ' ; 
1 Chron. ix, 32"; xxiii, 31; 2 Chron. ii, 4; 
viii, 13 ; xxiii, 4, 8, 8 ; xxxi, 3 ; xxxvi, 21 ; 
Is'eh. ix, 14 ; x, 31 \ 33 ; xiii, 15 % 16, 17, 18, 
19 % 21, 22 ; Psa. xcii, title ; Isa. i, 13 ; Ivi, 2, 4, 6 ; 
Iviii, 13 ' ; Ixvi, 23 ' ; Jer. xvii, 21, 22 % 24 ^ 27 ' ; 
Lam. ii, 6 ; Ezek. xx, 12, 13, 16, 20, 21, 24 ; 
xxii, 8, 26 ; xxiii, 38 ; xliv, 24 ; xlv, 17 ; xlvi, 
1, 3, 4, 12 ; Hos. ii, 11 ; Amos ^dii, 5. 

In all these numerous instances — which in- 
clude the entire number except the three easily 
explained in a preceding place — Sabbath in the 
Hebrew is rendered by Sabbath in the Septuagint. 
Ought not such exactness of discrimination be- 
tween heMomas and Sabbaton to end dispute ? 

Now return to the text in Matthew. Mm {mia) 



106 THE SABBATH. 

means one. It is often intensive, and takes tlie 
sense of first wlien empliatic, or nsed to desig- 
nate by absolute priority, or by pre-eminence. It 
occnrs seventy-nine times in the New Testament, 
and is rendered /r^^ only nine times, and of these 
eight are found in connection with the resurrec- 
tion Sabbath. Matt, xxviii, 1 ; Mark xvi, 2, 9 ; 
Luke xxiv, 1 ; John xx, 1, 19 ; Acts xx, 7 ; 1 Cor. 
xvi, 2. The ninth case is Titus iii, 10, which 
admits of a different rendering. Mmv — Mian — 
in the passage under view, is feminine and in the 
dative, leaving a noun in the dative feminine to 
be supplied, which noun is unquestionably 7]iiEpav 
{hemeran, day). To leave imepa — hemera — (day) 
to be supplied after lua {viia) is a frequent usage 
in Septuagint Greek, from which the evangelists 
obtained their forms and quotations. See Gen. 
viii, 13 ; Lev. xxiii, 24; Num. i, 1, 18 ; xxix, 1; 
xxxiii, 38; Deut. i, 3 ; Ezek. xxvi, 1; xxix, 17; 
xxxii, 1; xlv, 18. With this form the New 
Testament writers were familiar. Indeed, it is 
the natural form of speech where the first of two 
or more is indicated. Ilpwrof {protos, first) is the 
common ordinal in the Greek. Mta — mia — 



THE SABBATH. 107 

therefore appears to serve as a teclinic or a 
special qualifier of the Sunday-Sabbath. 

We now have the first day (more strictly, day 
one) of whatever is meant by oaj3[3aTO)v (Sabba- 
ton). This word is the genitive plural of Sab- 
bath. I think we have seen that Sabbath never 
means week in the Hebrew Scriptures or in the 
Septuagint Greek. lafSfSaTov — Sabbaton — (Sab- 
bath) is used, singular and plural, sixty-eight 
times in the 'New Testament. Singularly enough 
it is rendered weeJc only nine times, and these, all 
save one, in connection with the day of the res- 
urrection. The one exception alluded to is Luke 
xviii, 12, 'Nrjarevo 6cg rov aaf3(3arov — Nesteuo dis 
ton Scibbatou — " I fast twice in the week," This 
-language of a Pharisee relates to the Jewish Sab- 
bath, and we might be well content to leave the 
advocates of Saturday-Sabbath to harmonize it 
with their theory. Fifty-seven times the word is 
the name of the Jewish Sabbath. Let the reader 
attempt to substitute week in any of the passages 
except that alluded to in Luke — and that certainly 
admits of doubt — and see what sense he will 
make. The week was made for man, not man 



108 r-2E SABBATH. 

for the week; Lord of the week; whether he 
would heal on the week-day ; went into the syn- 
agogue on the week ; doth not each one of you 
on the week loose his beast from the stall ? the 
Jews sought to kill him because he had broken 
the week. If such readings are satisfactory our 
Saturday-Sabbath bretliren shall have a monop- 
oly of them. 

But why is the genitive plural (of the Sab- 
baths) used ? 

1. Because the Hebrews had more than one 
Sabbath, and the plural form came necessarily 
into use, and was followed by the LXX in the 
Septuagint translation. 

2. Because this form, the gen. plu., was of 
frequent and necessary use to express the thought 
of God. See Exod. xxxv, 3 ; Lev. xxiv, 8 ; Num. 
XV, 32 ; xxviii, 9 ; Deut. v, 12, 15 ; Jer. xvii, 21, 
22,' 24,' 27,' and especially Exod. xx, 8. In all 
these cases the Greek reads the ckiy of the Sdb- 
haths. 

This language was in famihar and inteUigent 
use among devout Israelites, especially that of 
the last citation, which is the fourth command- 



THE SABBATH. 109 

ment as it stands in the Septuagint Mvrja^rjTi ttjv 
rifiepav to)v oaPParcjv — Mnestheti ten henieran ton 
Sahhaton — " Eemember tlie day of the Sabbaths to 
hallow it." If the question should arise whether 
this is an authentic translation of the ancient He- 
brew text I have only to say that the spirit of 
insj)iration appears to have answered it by lead- 
ing all the evangehsts and the apostle to the 
Gentiles to use this form in a revelation designed 
for all the world and all time. 

3. The form is the same as that which desig- 
nates the Jewish Sabbaths in the same passages, 
which Sabbaths were now passing away with the 
superseded dispensation, of which they had been 
so important a feature. Oi/^fi 6e oajSfSaruv — Opse 
de Sahhaton — " in the end of the Sabbaths," pre- 
cedes iiiav aal3j3aTO)v — mian Sahhaton — "the first 
of the Sabbaths," in the same verse. 

4. It was, in fact, relatively the first of the Sab- 
baths, as being the restoration of the primeval 
Sabbath. 

5. It was the first of the Sabbaths by pre- 
eminence, as being the memorial of the supreme 
event on which the whole scheme of redemption 



110 THE SABBATH. 

was pivoted — namely, the resurrection of Christ 
from the dead. 

6. It was lirst as celebrating and signalizing the 
rest which followed the completed provisional 
work of human salvation. 

" 'Twas great to speak a world from naught, 
But greater to redeem." 

The observing reader will notice that there is 
not only a change of day, but a change also in the 
beginning of the day. The Hebrew Sabbath be- 
gan in the evening — to commemorate the " night 
much to be remembered," when the Hebrews ate 
the passover-supper with girded loins — and lasted 
through the subsequent day till evening, to com- 
memorate the day of their escape from bondage. 
1^0 such reason could exist for another people. 
Hence the adoption of the Roman or common 
day (see Alford, Bengel, and others) as is clearly 
shown by the text. "As it began to dawn toward 
the first day " is language wholly unsuitable to the 
Jewish Sabbath, as the dawn would have been 
about the middle of the day, which began at sun- 
set. The same fact is evidenced by every evan- 
gelist. 



TEE SABBATH.- HI 

I have dwelt so long on the text from Matthew 
for the reason that it so agrees with its parallels 
as to make it needless to consider every one in 
extenso. Thus Mark xvi, 2, reads Amv Trpwt Tqq 
fiiag oaf3f3aT(jjv — Licm proi tea mias Sahhaton — 
" very early in the morning, the first of the Sab- 
baths." Y. 9 reads Kvaaraq 6e npoji n-pwr?/ cafSISarov 
— Anastas di 2^'>''oi 2>T0te Sabhatou — which varies 
in a term, using TrpitiTTi GaPParov—prote Sabhaton 
— "the early dawn of the Sabbath." Meyer 
doubts whether Mark wrote the verse, and Ben- 
gel construes rrpcdi—proi — w'ith £0av?/ — ephane — 
(ajDpeared) making the reading, very early in the 
morning he apypeared^ instead of avaorag — anas- 
tas — was risen. 

Luke xxiv, 1, Tt; cJe ^ua rwv oaQfiaTwv — Te de mia 
ton Sabhaton — " ISTow upon the first of the Sab- 
baths." John XX, i, reads the same as Luke xxiv, 1. 
Acts XX, 7, reads Ev de tt] fiia twv oafifiaTOiv — En 
de te mia ton Sabhaton — " And on the first of the 
Sabbaths," when the disciples came together to 
break bread, etc., stating a prevalent usage. 

Jolm XX, 19, while it confirms the reading in- 
sisted upon, shows, also, that the Koman day was 



112 THE SABBATH. 

adopted, and that our Lord met his disciples in 
the evening of that day, as the 26th verse shows 
that he met them again on the next Lord's day. 

I must ask the reader's sj^ecial attention to 
some passages in Acts xiii. Paul and his com- 
pany came to Antioch, in Pisidia, and entered the 
synagogue of the Jews on their Sabbath. Upon 
invitation Paul preached so searching a sermon 
as greatly to excite the anger of his auditors. In 
course of it he told them that the Christ whom 
he preached was the burden of the prophets which 
were read in their hearing every Sabbath. !N"o 
one pretends to doubt that the Jewish Sabbath 
is meant in vs. 14 and 27. The Jews left the 
synagogue in anger, and, when they were gone 
out, the Gentiles besouglit that these words might 
be preached to them eiq to jnera^v oa(3j3aTov — eis 
to metaxu Sahhaton — " in the Sabbath between." 

Xow what was the Sabbath " between ? " The 
Gentiles of course knew that the Christians kept 
sacred the day foUomng the Jewish Sabbath. 
"What more natural than that they should desire 
to hear the truths repeated and enlarged upon on 
a day when the anger of the Jews would not 



THE SABBATH. 113 

interrnpt ? Mera|t; — Metaxu — indicates nearness, 
closeuess-at-hand, as in Matt, xviii,, 15, " Tell him 
his fault hetween thee and him alone." Luke xi, 
51, " Between the altar and the temple." Acts 
xii, 6, "Sleeping between two soldiers." The 
clear inference appears to be that it was the Sab- 
bath between this and the next Jewish Sabbath. 
Bear m mind that the evangehsts and the apostles 
had no other name than Sabbath for the daj of 
resurrection. 

But the narrative continues : Tw te exofievot 
aal3(3arci — To te ec/iome)w Sabhato — " on the Sab- 
bath just at hand," nearly the whole city came 
together to hear the word of God " [the Lord]. 
EGhoiiieiie is a term of strict meaning and Hmited 
use. The lexicons define it thus : " Exoijlsvt] — 
Echomene — the day after to-morrow — that is, 
which is next or contiguous to to-morrow ; from 
'Exopievoi; — JEchomends — holding of, following, 
subsequent, next, contiguous, neighboring." 
"Ej^ojuevwf adv. — ecJionienos — immediately after." 
These two strong words, witnessing together, 
would appear to decide the question on soundly 

critical grounds. Once get rid of the bewilder- 
8 



U4 THE SABBATH. 

ing notion of an "idiomatic sense" of Sabbath, 
and we shall see in the narrative a clear and 
simple statenient of the fact that "when the 
synagogue broke up " (R. Y.) the Gentiles asked 
Paul to preach to them on the Christian Sabbath 
just at hand, with which request he complied. If 
further confirmation were needed it could be 
found in the succeeding verses : " Paul and Bar- 
nabas spake out boldly, and said. It was necessary 
that the word of God should first be spoken to 
you [Jews]. Seeing ye thrust it from you, and 
judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we 
turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord com- 
manded us, saying, I have set thee for a light of 
the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salvation 
unto the uttermost part of the earth. And as the 
Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified 
the word of God " [the Lord]. 

Thus far the argument has been severely 
scriptural. It would be easy to add a strong col- 
lateral argument drawn from the providence 
which has attended the consecration of resurrec- 
tion day to holy uses. Tliis day was, in fact, to be- 
come the sacred day of the great body of the 



TEE SABBATH. 115 

Christian world. The change, right or wrong, 
was destined to take place, and it was too great to 
pass without notice. It was to be — as must have 
lain within the foreknowledge of the Lord — ^the 
Sabbath of the Christian Church in its then 
future career. To it were to chng ordinances, 
sacraments, pubhc worship, and the agencies of 
evangehzation. In the nature of the case it 
must have appeared to the Head of the Church a 
matter of commanding interest, and could not 
have been passed as indifferent. That the day 
did change in practice all the world knows. If 
it was to be wickedly and profanely changed, 
here was the place to set the beacon of warning. 
If it was to be changed by the wiU of God, here 
was the place to say just what the Sj^irit does say 
through all the evangehsts. And when we add 
to the precurrent probabilities the list of " teach- 
ing facts " given in preceding pages, " the dem- 
onstration by results " becomes overwhelmingly 
strong. Albeit the Scriptures themselves leave 
no room for cavil and no need for collaterals. 

The Lord, who constantly vindicated his con- 
duct against the charge of Sabbath-breaking, had 



116 THE SABBATH. 

a sovereign right to set the day forward, rel- 
atively, to its primeval place, and did so set it, as 
the record clearly proves. There could be no 
stronger proof than is given in the sacred desig- 
nation bestowed upon the day. The day on 
which Christ rose from the dead is never called 
by any other name than Sabbath, save in the one 
instance in the Kevelation. It is time, therefore, 
that the Christian world should dismiss the name 
Sunday and call the day what the Spirit of the 
Lord calls it— the Sabbath. That the early 
Christian fathers, in their constant and harassing 
controversies with the Jews, their remorseless 
persecutors, rather than contend with such adver- 
saries for a name used the words Smiday, Eighth 
day, Fu-st day, and Resurrection day, only shows 
their confidence in the strength of their cause and 
their unwillingness to contend for a word. That 
they devoted the day to sacred uses and regarded 
it as representing the prmieval Sabbath is made 
apparent by many passages. It will be sufficient 
to quote a full statement of the Christian uses of 
the day and its relation to the original Sabbath 
from Justin Martyr, an eminent Gentile convert, 



THE SABBATH. 117 

born about 110 or 114 A. D., in a village of 
Samaria, near Jacob's well, and amply qualified 
by learning, devoutness, and travel to state the 
faith of tlie early Church. After dwelling on the 
'E.vxapLOTia — Eucharistia — (eucharist) he pro- 
ceeds to describe the weekly worship of the 
Christians thus : " And we afterward continually 
remind each other of these things. And the 
wealthy among us help the needy ; and we always 
keep together ; and for all things wherewith we 
are supplied we bless the Maker of all through 
his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy 
Ghost. And on the day called Sunday all who 
live in cities or in the country gather together to 
one place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the 
^vritings of the prophets are read as long as time 
permits ; then, when the reading has ceased, the 
president verbally instructs and exhorts to the 
imitation of these good things. Then we all rise 
together and pray, and, as we before said, when 
our prayer is ended bread and wine and water 
are brought, and the president in like manner 
offers prayers and thanksgivings according to 
his ability, and the people assent, saying amen ; 



118 TEE SABBATH. 

and there is a distribution to each and a partici- 
pation of that over whicli thanks have been given, 
and to those who are absent a portion is sent by 
the deacons. And they who are well-to-do and 
willing give what each sees tit, and what is col- 
lected is deposited with the president, who succors 
the orphans and widows and those who, through 
sickness or any other cause, are in want, and 
those who are in bonds, and the strangers sojourn- 
ing among us, and, in a word, takes care of all 
who are in need. But Sunday is the day on 
which we all hold our common assembly, because 
it is the first day on which God, having wrought 
a change in the darkness and matter, made the 
world, and Jesus Christ our Saviour on the same 
day rose from the dead. For he was crucified on 
the day before that of Saturn, and on the day 
after that of Satum, which is the day of the sun, 
having appeared to his apostles and disciples, he 
taught them these things which we have submit- 
ted to you also for your consideration." 

It is clear not only that the sacredness was 
transferred from Saturday to Sunday, but also 
that the time of beginning the day was changed. 



THE SABBATH. 119 

All the evangelists speak of the day in a way to 
leave no room for doubt that the Eoman day had 
been and was to be adopted. Alford is explicit 
on this point. On Matt, xxviii. 1, he has these em- 
phatic words : '' Oi/>e de oal3j3aTO)v — opse de Sab- 
baton — not at the end of the week. The words 
(7al3l3aTO)v — Sabbaton — and fica oaj3l3aTO)v — mia 
Sabbaton — are opposed, both being days. . . . 
It is best to interpret a doubtful expression in 
unison with the other testimonies, and to sup- 
pose that here both the day and the hreahing of 
the day are taken in their natural, not in their 
Jewish sense." In this position the eminent 
translator is supported by men not less eminent, 
and, best of all, by the structure and necessary 
sense of the sacred writings which he translates. 
The reason for beginning the Sabbath in the 
evening was no longer pertinent, and the conven- 
ience of a world-wide worship would be better 
served by a day in harmony with the calendars of 
ordinary life, as three of the reasons which un- 
derlay the Hebrew Sabbath were inapplicable to 
any other people. 

The general effect of these reasonings and 



120 THE SABBATH. 

authorities appears to me to sustain the following 
position : 

The Jewish Sabbaths and feasts were a part of 
the r^imen of the chosen people. They be- 
longed to a dispensation which was now super- 
seded. Sacrifices had no significance after the 
death of Jesus, and ceremonials no obligation 
after his resurrection. After that glorious morn- 
ing, to observe the Jewish Sabbath, with its sac- 
rifices and rites, was to deny the Messiahsliip of 
the risen Christ. These Sabbaths, feasts, cer- 
emonials belonged to a dispensation now com- 
pleted. They could have no legitimate place in 
the new, and could retain their hold on human 
reverence only as matters of great historic inter- 
est, their obligation having expired by virtue of 
the expiration of the reasons that supported them. 
" Lew stat ditm ratio mmut " is a maxim which 
prevails in the kingdom of God as well as in the 
kingdoms of men. " At [or after] the end of 
the [Je\vish] Sabbaths" "the first of the Sab- 
baths " of the new dispensation was ushered in 
with the rolling away of the stone from the door 
of the sepulcher and the coming forth of tlie Res- 



THE SABBATH. 121 

urrection and the Life. So did the all-conquer- 
ing God onr Saviour change the day, that the 
world might, on the same precious day, commem- 
orate the creation and the new creation ; the 
finished work of fitting up an abode for the race 
and the finished work and glorious certification 
of the redemption of the race. This is the day 
the Lord hath made., we will rejoice and he glad 
in it ! Both the Hebrew and the Greek have 
facile and unconfusing ways of expressing " the 
morrow after the Sabbath ; " but God the Holy 
Ghost put the day in its place and fixed its name 
and sacredness forever. 

That Sabbath means " week by synecdoche " is 
a theory which, I respectfully submit, must be 
abandoned, as it fails every-where, unless its 
advocates resort to a bald jpetitio jprincijpii and 
quote in its support the very scriptures in con- 
troversy. 

Should an ardent disputant persist in arguing 
that, although Sabbath never means week when 
applied to the seventh day, unless in the doubt- 
ful case of Luke xviii, 12, yet it always means 
week when it designates the eighth or first day, 



122 TEE SABBATH. 

I should mildly point to the marvel that the 
"Hebraism" passed over the entire period of 
Hebrew history proper, to expend its mysterious 
force exclusively on the New Dispensation. 
Such a procedure would counter-work the gen- 
eral scheme of a revelation intended for instruc- 
tion in righteousness, tliat the man of God may 
be perfectly instructed in good works. 



THE SABBATH. 123 



CHAPTER YIII. 
Patristic Testimony and Usage. 

IT would be easy to fill pages with the testimony 
of the fathers ; but the main point in con- 
troversy may be settled within limited space. 
The persistency with which Saturday-Sabbath 
writers evade the true issue here is another of 
many proofs of the degree to which a favorite 
theory may blind the judgment. They spend 
much time dwelhng upon the superstitions which 
crept into the Church in the early centuries, while 
the vital questions, as to this issue, are but two : 
First. Were the fathers competent and credible 
witnesses concerning the query whether the 
Lord's day, or First day, was recognized as ex- 
ceptional; and, second. Did the disciples gen- 
erally consecrate the day to the celebration of the 
Lord's Supper and to worshipful rejoicing in the 



124 THE SABBATH. 

resurrection of Jesus ? In other words, "Was it 
their Sabbath? 

These questions admit of but one intelligent 
answer. The superstitions and mistakes attributed 
to the patristic writers in no manner impair their 
competency or credibihty as witnesses of facts. 
And their testimony puts it beyond rational dis- 
pute that the early Church did so regard and 
treat the Lord's day. Therefore I deem it need- 
less to occupy space with quotations which may 
be found in a score of works on the Sabbath. 

Why the fathers did not call the day Sahoath 
is an inquiry of more significance than would at 
first appear. We have seen that the Holy Spirit 
gave the name Sabbath to resurrection-day. Why, 
then, did the practice prevail of calHng it Eighth- 
day, Lord's-day, Resurrection-day, Day of the 
Sun, Sunday ? All which names were applied to 
the same day. 

It is indisputable that in their controversies 
with the Jews, who, as TertuUian afiirms, were 
" the seed-plot of all the calmnnies " against the 
Christians, they suffered these adversaries to re- 
tain the name to which they so tenaciously clung. 



THE SABBATH. 125 

The Jews were numerous and, in many ways, 
powerful, and they clung to the name Sabbath as 
some small sects in our own time try to monop- 
olize the name Christian. Justin Martyr, Clement 
of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Cyprian, 
Eusebius, Chi-ysostom, and Augustus, and others 
of later date, more intent on truth than names, 
left their Judaic disputants the name of a super- 
seded day, while they demolished their assump- 
tions respecting law and obligation. It is on this 
account that readers of patristic literature have 
to exercise vigilance to avoid confusion of thought. 
It may also be added that. Sabbath having so long 
been the designation of Saturday, it appeared ex- 
pedient, for the time, to employ a distinctive name 
in order to prevent the confounding of Lord's- 
day with the Jewish day. 

In several instances the fathers use Sabbath in 
the Jewish sense. This was almost unavoidable 
in controversy, and in discriminating the worship 
days of Jews and Christians. It is also true that 
the Wazarenes and Ebionites— a sort of Jew- 
Christians — kept both days, thus ignoring half 
the law, namely, " Six days slialt thou labor." 



126 TEE SABBATH. 

These persons were not considered as belonging 
properly to the Church, although, in many par- 
ticulars, they S}anpathized wath it. In the time 
of Justin Martyr it was a grave question whether 
a Christian who observed Sabbath (Saturday) 
should be admitted to the holy mysteries, 
" Against such Sabbatarianism not only he, but 
Clement and Dionysius of Alexandria, Tertullian, 
Victorine, Novatian, and others, testified." 

There is a disputed passage in the N'ew Testa- 
ment which falls in place here — Matt, xxiv, 20. 
The Lord instructed his disciples to pray that 
their flight from Jerusalem might not be in the 
winter, nor on the Sabbath. He who enjoined 
the prayer was able to insure its answer. He 
gave them a sign by which they should know 
when to flee. When " they should see the abomi- 
nation of desolation [the military ensigns of 
Eome] set up in the holy place," they were to 
make their escape. Gilfillan gives satisfactory 
reasons for the opinion that they escaped to Pella 
on Saturday, while Titus — knowing tliat the Jews 
would not molest hmi on that day^employed his 
army in preparmg and setting machines and 



TEE SABBATH. 127 

making other approaclies for an assault on Sun- 
day. It is a cuiious fact — mentioned by Kitto in 
his History of Palestine, Vol. II, p. Y56 — that 
Titus employed Saturdays in preparing for at- 
tacks on the succeeding Sundays. Thus his first 
assault was on Sunday, April 22, A. D. 70. Part 
of the Lower City was taken Sunday, May 6 ; 
the Temple was burned Sunday,- August 5 ; and 
the Upper City was taken and destroyed Sunday, 
September 2. The Christians could not have es- 
caped on the days of assault. Saturdays were the 
favorable days. Thus the Hearer of prayer put 
another mark of approbation upon the first of 
the Sabbaths. His disciples, in answer to their 
prayer, escaped in summer and on a secular day. 
A flagrant falsification of history is prevalent 
among Saturday-Sabbath people. Many who 
know nothing of Constantine or the Council of 
Nice, save what they have read in the contro- 
versial writings of their own pecuHar school, are 
loud and bold in affirming that Constantine insti- 
tuted or first gave authority to the Christian Sab- 
bath, and the Council of Nice, under his imperial 
control, confirmed the innovation by fixing the 



128 THE SABBATH. 

annual festival of the passover on Sunday ; and 
Sylvester, Bishop of Eome, joined in the con- 
spiracy against a holy Sabbath by helping to 
transform the festival of the sun into a Christian 
institution. As a popular sample of this sort of 
one-eyed reading see Andrews's History of the 
Sahhath, pp. 349, 350 : " Thus it is seen that the 
law, enacted in support of a heathen institution, 
after a few years came to be considered a Chris- 
tian ordinance ; and Constantine himself, four 
years after his Sunday edict, was able to control 
the Church, as represented in the general Council 
of Nice, so as to cause the members of that coun- 
cil to establish their annual festival of the pass- 
over upon Simday. Paganism had prepared the 
institution from ancient days, and had now ele- 
vated it to supreme power; its work was ac- 
complished. We have proved that the Sunday 
festival in the Christian Church had no Sab- 
batical character before the time of Constantine. 
We have also sho^\Ti that heathenism, in the per- 
son of Constantine, first gave to Sunday its Sab- 
batical character, and in the very act of doing it 
designated it as a heathen, and not as a Chi-istian 



THE SABBATH. 129 

festival, thus establisHng a heathen Sabbath. It 
was now the part of poperj authoritatively to 
effect its transformation — a work which it was not 
slow to perform. Sylvester was the Bislioj) of 
Kome while Constantine was emperor. How 
faithfully he acted his part in transforming the 
festival of the sun into a Christian institution is 
seen in that, by his apostohc authority, he changed 
the name of the day, giving it the imposing title 
of Lord's-day. To Constantine and to Sylvester, 
therefore, the advocates of First-day observance 
are greatly indebted. The one elevated it as a 
heathen festival to the throne of the empire, 
making it a day of rest from most kinds of busi- 
ness ; the other changed it into a Christian insti- 
tution, giving it the dignified appellation of 
Lord's-day." 

I have given so long a quotation because it 
contains the distilled essence of vohmies of 
paralogism and misreading, and also because it 
puts so many false and contradictory assertions 
into small space. 

Notice — First. Constantine was a heathen wor- 
shiper of the sun — of course on the sun's day — 



130 THE SABBATH. 

as his predecessors had been ; and he elevated 
the heathen festival of Sunday to the throne of 
the empire, where — if the plirase means any 
thing — it had long been recognized by all cus- 
tomary forms and rites ! 

Second. On March 7, A. D. 321, Constantino 
issued his edict setting Sunday ajDart for Christian 
uses, and deiDriving emiiloyers of tlie power to 
deprive the employed of a day of worship. 
Andrews quotes from Mosheim to 23rove that the 
emperor was not truly converted till three years 
after the edict. Yet after he became " an abso- 
lute Christian " he " was able to control the 
Church, as represented in the general Council of 
Nice, so as to cause the members of that council" 
to confirm an edict which he had issued while an 
unconverted heathen ! 

Third. " Sunday had no Sabbatical character 
before the time of Constantine." " Heathenism, 
in the person of Constantine, first gave Sunday 
its Sa1)batical character ! " 

Pray, what sort of Sabbatical character could 
heathenism give to any day ? Wliat constitutes 
Sabbatical character? A day of weekly recur- 



THE SABBATH. 131 

rence, set apart and sacredly observed by the 
"assembling" or "coming together" of Chris- 
tians for the study and hearing of the word of 
God, the celebration of the eucharist, and wor- 
shi^jful rejoicing in the resurrection, constitute a 
Sabbatical character such as the true Sabbath 
has to-day among devout disciples of our Lord. 
Do Saturday-Sabbath writers — I say writers, for 
they all run in one line and " repeat the blunder 
o'er and o'er " — do Saturday-Sabbath writers ex- 
pect to be believed when they affirm that this 
character was not possessed by Sunday-Sabbath 
till the time of Constantino ? Andrews himself, 
on the very page from which we quote, refers to 
the fact that one of the fathers, as early as A. D. 
200, calls Sunday Lord's day, and names seven 
others before the Council of ISTice who apply 
the same name; namely, Tertullian, Origen, 
Cyprian, Anatolius, Commodianus, Yictorinus, 
and Peter of Alexandria. With singular incon- 
sequence he reasons that the use of the name by 
these eminent fathers signifies nothing, because 
they do not claim apostolic authority for the 
designation ! Pray, what need was there of a 



132 THE SABBATH. 

constant iteration of sucli a claim, since it was as 
well understood as Sabbath among the Jews, and 
an apostle had set the first example of using it ? 

Let me add a few names to the hst of the 
fathers given above : Ignatius to the Magnesians 
— p. 63, Ante-Nicene Fathers — rebukes such as 
kept the Sabbath after the Jewish -manner, and 
adds : " After the observance of the Sabbath let 
every friend of Christ keep the LorcVs-day as a 
festival, the Kesurrection-day, the queen and chief 
of all tlie days. Looking forward to this, the 
j^rophet declared, ' To the end, for the Eighth 
day,' on which our life both sj)rang up again 
and the victory over death was obtained in 
Christ, whom the children of perdition, the ene- 
mies of the Saviour, deny." 

As to the Sabbatic character, I have already 
quoted the illustrious Justin Martyr, who must 
be rated as better authority than Saturday-Sab- 
bat! i writers. 

Clement of Alexandria thus writes : " And the 
LorcVs-day Plato prophetically speaks of in the 
tenth book of the Republic." He again alludes 
to it by name in these words : " He, in f ulfilhnent 



THE SABBATH. 133 

of the precept, according to the Gospel, keeps 
the LorcVs-day, when, he abandons an evil dispo- 
sition and assumes that of the gnostic, glorifying 
the Lord's resurrection in liimseK." 

Let me quote a sentence from TertuUian, men- 
tioned in Andrews's list : " Not the LorcPs-day, 
nor pentecost, even if they had known them, 
would they have shared with us ; for they would 
fear lest they should seem to be Christians ! " — 
AnterNicene Fathers, Yol, III, ]3. 70. 

In The Constitutions of the Holy AjJostleswe 
have, for what it is worth, this sentence : " He 
was crucified on the day of the preparation, and 
rose again at break of. day on the Lord's-dayP 

In The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles there 
are several allusions to the Lord's-day by name. 
Thus, "But on the Lord's-day do ye gather your- 
selves together, and break bread, and give thanks- 
giving after having confessed your transgressions, 
that your sacrifice may be pure." — Ante-Nicene 
Fathers, Vol. YII, p. 381. 

I liave dwelt a little on the designation of 
Lord's-day, not because it is of any vital impor- 
tance to tlie argument, but to show witli what 



134 THE SABBATH. 

apparent recklessness of truth an honest man 
may try to prop a false theory. Returning to a 
more serious answer to the misstatements quoted 
from Andrews, T have these things to say : 

First. As already abundantly proved, the 
Christian Sabbath had been sacredly observed 
two hundred and eighty-eight years before Con- 
stantine issued his Sunday-law. 

Of John XX, 26, Dr. Schaff says : " This is 
the beginning of the history of the Lord's-day, 
which to this day has never suffered a single in- 
terruption in Christian lands, except for a brief 
period of madness in France during the Reign of 
Terror." 

Second. The decree of the emperor — now a 
Christian by conviction— simply recognized an 
existing Christian institution, and disci othed his 
subjects of power to deprive their fellow subjects 
of their day of rest and worship. 

Third. The question of the weekly Sabliath 
had no prominence in the discussions of the 
Nicene Council. Ecclesiastical discipline of 
apostates was one theme of earnest discussion. 
The time of the passover — which is not properly 



THE SABBATH. 135 

a Cliristian festival — engaged some tliought ; but 
the great debate was on tlie Trinity — tlie unity 
of substance between tlie Father and the Son. 
There was no manifested difference of opinion 
with respect to the Sabbath. 

Fourth. Constantine, whose veneration for 
bishops was little less than a superstition, pre- 
sided over that august assembly, composed of 
three hundred and eighteen bishops and two 
thousand and forty-eight ecclesiastics of lesser 
degree, in a manner so gentle, conciliatory, and 
dignified as to excite the admiration of students 
of history. At later periods in his reign age, 
gluttony, and arbitrary power bore evil fruits and 
darkened the record of liis imperial career. 

For confirmation of the above statements see 
Neander's History of the Christian Church, 
edition of 1849, Vol. II, pp. 366-380. Also 
same volume, pp. 21Y-221. Also Gieseler's 
Ecclesiastical History, Vol. I., pp. 257, 258, and 
294—323. Also Beacon Lights of History, by 
Dr. John Lord, Vol. I, pp. 249-272. Also read 
the Nicene Creed itself, which may be found, in 
Greek, in Gieseler, Vol. I, p. 297, and, in both 



136 THE SABBATH. 

Greek and Englisli, in McClintock and Strong's 
Biblical and Theological Encyclo2)edia, p. 256. 
It would be as - liigtoricallj accurate to say that 
Abraham Lincoln "instituted" Independence 
Day as that Constantine or Sylvester, or both of 
them together, instituted the Christian Sabbath 
or gave to Sunday a Sabbatical character. Con- 
stantine did what ever}' Christian State ought, in 
substance, to do — that is, to assure to every man 
the privilege of a day of rest and worship, if he 
chooses to use it. 

It is needless to heap authority upon authority. 
Yet one can scarcely forbear to refer to author- 
ities higher than the fathers, who recognized a 
Sabbath character in the day of resurrection long 
enough before Constantine or Sylvester. Paul 
and Luke ought to be accepted as credible wit- 
nesses. In Acts XX, 7, we have the testimony of 
both principal and amanuensis : "On the first of 
the Sabbaths, when the disciples came together 
to break bread." Ko ingenuity can torture this 
into any thing less than a prevalent custom 
among the Christians of that time, " who," says 
Bengel, " were met together, as already at that 



THE SABBATH. 137 

time was their wont, on tlie Lord's day." A 
literal rendering, with the obvious ellipse sup- 
plied, makes the passage, if possible, still stronger. 
"When we [rwv jtia^T/rcovTov]— the disciples — 
come together to break bread." Again — 1 Cor. 
xvi, 2 — " On the first of the Sabbaths, let every 
one of you lay by him in store," etc. We have 
seen the prevalent custom of the early Christians. 
Read again He v. i : John " was in the Spirit on 
the Lord's day." What day was that? I have 
read with care all that Saturday-Sabbath writers 
say in their attempt to evade the force of this 
statement, and have been equally amazed at the 
fatuity and the futility of their strenuous en- 
deavor. Jehovah (probably Yaveh before the 
changing of the vowel points) is the memorial 
name which God in the second person takes 
when he descends in mercy into the affairs of 
men. It was a name so sacred that the Hebrews 
pronounced it only in whispers, Kwrrtof — Kurios 
— Lord — is applied to Christ as an equivalent 
term, and never in a lower sense when used as a 
distinctive title. But the context puts the sense 
beyond any iJiing but purl:)lind dispute. Read it. 



138 TEE SABBATH. 

It is a vision of the risen Lord ; concerning the 
will and work of the Lokd ; given by the Spirit 
of the Lord, on the day of the Lord. 

It has been already shown that Jesus our Lord 
changed the day back to the primeval Sabbath, 
and fixed its designation by a teaching fact louder 
than the blast of a trumpet from the throne ; the 
spirit of inspiration made an indelible record of 
the fact in immediate connection with the resur- 
rection ; the risen Christ put special distinction 
upon the day of his resurrection, and that the 
disciples held the day sacred for their asseml)lings 
to break the bread of the encharistic supper, and 
to worshijD the risen Lord with the assured hope 
and mighty joy begotten by his reviviscence. 
All this some time before Constantino and Syl- 
vester ! Constantino and the Bishop of Rome 
might as well have attempted to " institute " the 
resurrection as the day which commemorates it. 

It is worth noting in this place that the 
Outlook^ much the ablest periodic publication of 
Saturday-Sabbath advocates, admits that the early 
Christians did keep the Sunday as Sabbath, but 
denies that they had divine authori-ty for so do- 



THE SABBATH. 139 

ing! I must think tliat thej were the better 
judges. 

In contrast with the Saturday-SaMath sects 
stands a party at the other extreme, maintaining 
that all Sabbaths are done away in the Christian 
Church, or — what practically amounts to the 
same — that every day is a Sabbath. They at- 
tempt to support so untenable a theory by an 
appeal to Col. ii, 16, 17. The apostle is guard- 
ing the Colossians against the philosophy, tradi- 
tions, rudiments, and ordinances which were being 
used to obscure and deny Christ. They had in 
him the spiritual import of circumcision and res- 
urrection. There were those who insisted that 
Christians ought to observe ceremonial eating 
and drinking, new moons, feast-days, and Jewish 
Sabbaths. Hence the apostle exhorts them : 
"Let no man therefore judge you in meat or 
drink, or in res23ect of a feast-day, or of the new 
moon, or of the Sabbaths — Ga(3(3aTCJv — Sahhaton?'' 
These things all belong to the same category and 
appear in the same relation. Who M^ere the peo- 
ple that demanded the observance of these things, 
and fiercely accused the Christians because they 



140 , THE SABBATH. 

declined to regard them as binding on tlieir con- 
sciences? None other "than the Jews. It was, 
tlien, the Jewish feasts and Sabbaths which they 
were at hbertj to ignore. To observe these was 
to deny their Lord. They were but "a shadow 
of things to come ; " and, the foreshadowed tilings 
having come, there was no longer need of the 
shadows. Indeed, they could no longer participate 
in these things in a manner to satisfy their cap- 
tious critics without denying the Lord that bought 
them. It is a far-fetched and absurd inference 
from this timely piece of apostolic instruction 
that they should set aside, or treat as indifferent, 
the very day which commemorated the sublime 
event by which these types and shadows were 
fulfilled and superseded ! It is not easy to refrain 
from saying that such a " lame and impotent con- 
clusion" from such j)remises is a ludicrous non 
sequitur. 

As logical effects of the preceding argunfient 
note, 

First. It destroys the vahdity of the following 
propositions : 

a. The Sabbath is and has always been the 



THE SABBATH. . 141 

seventh day, in an exact astronomical series, 
from tlie rest-day of creation. 

h. The Sabbath is every-where a solar day of 
twenty-four honrs, counting from evening to 
evening. 

c. Sabbath always means "rest " and " seventh." 

d. The fourth commandment applies to no 
day but the Saturday-Sabbath of the Jews, and 
therefore is violated by keeping the Sunday- 
Sabbath of Christians. 

e. As the law requires six days of labor and 
one of rest it is the duty of all persons in health 
to labor on the Sunday-Sabbath. 

Second. It sustains the following propositions : 

a. The Sabbath is not every-where a solar day 
of twenty-four hours, counting from evening. 

h. The Sabbatli is not an absolute, but a rela- 
tive seventh — a seventh relatively to six days of 
secular employment. 

G. The Sabbath law is adjusted to the shape 
and motions of the planet, and is obeyable at the 
poles as at tlie equator ; by voyagers eastward as 
by voyagers westward. God does not contradict 
liimseK. 



142 THE SABBAVK 

d. Longitude compels an accommodation of 
time. Without such accommodation all calen- 
dars, all business, all Sabbaths, all distinctions of 
week-days and Sabbaths, and all religious order, 
are thrown into hopeless confusion. 

e. In order to the jiroper and profitable keep- 
ing of the Sabbath the same daj must be ob- 
served by the same people. Otherwise all 
industries would be deranged and the Sabbath 
quiet destroyed. If a part of the civil officers, 
or the operatives in shops and manufactories, or 
the hands on a farm were to keep Sabbath, and 
a part Saturday, industrial efficiency and order 
would be impossible, while the quiet of the Sab- 
bath would be sacrificed to the disharmony of 
the situation. And if the same day is to be 
guaranteed and guarded by law no other day 
can for a moment come into comj)etition with 
the Christian Sabbath. 

f. Both the septenary and the annual Sabbaths 
of the Jewish dispensation were superseded at 
the resurrection, the one by displacement, the 
other by fulfillment of its forelooking sacrificial 
significance, and both by the supersession of the 



THE SABBATH. 143 

dispensation to which they belonged ; and the 
relative first day became the ever-recurring and 
only Sabbath of the Church of the risen Christ. 

g. The Christian Sabbath, while it necessarily 
drops the special reasons underlying the Hebrew 
economy, retains the primal reason with the 
primal day, and adds the commemoration of the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

h. The Sunday-Sabbath, being the true and 
universal Sabbath, falls under the full force and 
authority of the fourth commandment. 

i. The fourth commandment being the nexus 
which, joins the two tables into a whole and per- 
fect law, to secularize the sacred day for business 
or dissipative pleasure is, practically, as far as the 
transgressor's influence extends, to annul the com- 
mandment and repeal the Decalogue. 

j. " Sunday " being a designation given by 
idolaters to the perverted primeval worship-day, 
should no longer be used by Christians. The 
day which the Lord hath made should bear its 
own name, Sabbath, and be kept holy by all wlio 
fear God and love men. 

h The resurrection of our Lord, without 



144 THE SABBATH. 

wliicli tlie scheme of redemption would have 
proved abortive through incompleteness, is not 
now, and is destined never to be, suitably and 
continuously commemorated otherwise than by 
the reverent and worshipful keeping of the 
Lord's-day. 

I. The knowledge of God in creation and re- 
demjDtion would cease in the earth if the Chris- 
tian Sabbath were to fall into universal desuetude. 

"We have reached what, we respectfully submit, 
may justly be regarded as a scriptural, historic, 
philosophical, and philological Demonstkation, 
If any insist on a mathematical demonstration as 
well they are referred to Dr. Akers's Biblical 
Chronology, pp. 33-40, where they will find all 
the elements of the problem, and may work it 
out for themselves. By this process they will be 
carried to the same conclusion ; namely, that Sun- 
day was the primeval Sabbath, which was re- 
clothed with authority at the resurrection of the 
Lord. 



THE SABBATK 145 



CHAPTER IX. 
Opinions of Wise Men. 

MY main aim has been to present a conclusive 
scriptural argument. Volumes could be 
filled with the opinions of the wisest and best of 
men — statesmen, jurists, legislators, philosoj)hers, 
and pliilanthroj)ists — with respect to the necessity 
and benefits of the Sabbatli. I shall content my- 
self with a very few samples, taken here and 
there fi-om among a great number within easy 
reach. 

Justice McLean said: "Where there is no 
Christian Sabbath there is no Christian morality, 
and, without this, free institutions cannot long be 
sustained." 

Governor Ellsworth, of Connecticut, in a 

message to the Legislature, said : " The Christian 

religion owes its extension, and its power over 
10 



146 THE SABBATH. 

the consciences of men, to tlie institution and 
influence of the Sabbath." 

Chief Justice Story, in an inaugural address at 
Harvard, said : " It is one of the beautiful boasts 
of our municipal jurisprudence tliat Christianity 
is a part of the common law. . . . There never 
has been a period in which the common law did 
not recognize Christianity as lying at its founda- 
tion." 

Chancellor Kent said : " Christianity, in its 
enlarged sense, as a religion revealed and taught 
in the Bible, is not unknown to our law. The 
statute for preventing immorality consecrates the 
first day of the week as holy time, and considers 
the violation of it immoral." 

Dr. Lyman Beecher said : "By the grace of 
God the members of this Union [the United 
States] will exercise their rights of citizenship 
for the preservation of the Sabbath to their 
famihes and their beloved country, unangered 
and unawed." 

S. J. Buchingham said : It " was designed by 
a wise and beneficent Deity to give to his creat- 
ures that expansion of heart, and cheerfulness 



THE SABBATH. 147 

of mind, and serene and satisfactory enjoyment 
of body which the observance of the Sabbath as 
a day of rest brings to all." 

De Tocqueville said : " France must have your 
[American] Sabbath' or she is ruined." 

Son. George Bancroft., America's most emi- 
nent-historian, said : " Certainly our great united 
Commonwealth is the child of Christianity. It 
may with equal truth be asserted that modern 
civihzation sprang into life with our religion ; 
and faith in its principles is the life-boat on 
which humanity has at divers times escaped the 
most threatening perils." 

Voltaire said (for contrast) : " There is no 
hope of destroying the Christian religion so long 
as the Christian Sabbath is acknowledged and 
kept by men as a sacred day." 

F. W. Robertson — who will not be suspected 
of austerity, or of that gorgon of a fool's imag- 
ination, "Puritanism," said: "I am more and 
more sure by experience that the reason for the 
observation of the Sabbath lies deep in tlie ever- 
lasting necessities of human nature, and that, as 
long as man is man, the blessedness of keei:)ing 



148 THE SABBATH. 

it, not as a day of bodily rest only, but as a day 
of spiritual rest, will never be annulled . . . for 
the Sabbath was made for man." 

Balj)h Waldo Emerson said : " The Sunday is 
the core of our civilization." 

Dr. Isaac Taylor said : " I am prepared to 
affirm that the Sabbath is the best of all means 
of refreshment to the mere intellect." 

Bev. Wilbur F. Crafts^ A.M. — author of a 
book suffocatingly full of facts and figures, a 
rich thesaurus of information on this subject, 
says : " Marriage and the Sabbath were the Jacin 
and Boaz of man's Edenic temple, and they re- 
main the two chief pillars of his home to-day." 

Coleridge said : "I feel as if God in giving 
the Sabbath had given fifty-two springs in the 
year." 

Opinions of laboring men are equally explicit. 
Go where you will to inquire, and you will find 
all intelligent laboring men (and most unintelli- 
gent) in favor of a civil Sabbath when they come 
to understand its design. The most thoughtful 
among them see that the civil Sabbath — the 
toiler's rest-day — can be maintained with cer- 



THE SABBATH. 149 

tainty no longer than the day is recognized as 
resting on the warrant of a divine law. Hence 
a number of bright, argumentative, and very 
instructive books, and many tracts, in defense of 
the Christian Sabbath, have been written by 
working-men. While such eminent persons as 
Gladstone, Disraeli, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and 
many others only less eminent, have ably de- 
fended the laboring class against the insidious 
attempts of greed and atheism to rob them of 
their one precious day of rest, home, and culture, 
they have bravely risen in England to defend 
themselves. They know full well that when the 
sense of religious obligation fades out the day 
which many wisli to devote to pleasure will be 
demanded of them for toil. The scheme to 
annul the Sabbath is as crafty as it is cruel, as to 
the leading spirits ; but thousands are unwittingly 
drawn into it by the most specious sophistries, 
which the want of accurate information and dis- 
ciplined thought makes the self-harming victims 
too inexpert to detect. 

There are laborers who dream that if all Sab- 
bath restrictions were repealed tliey would still 



150 THE SABBATH 

enjoy a weekly holiday. This is probably a delu- 
sion. Already, against law and without necessity, 
a milhon of men are de^jrived of Sabbath by the 
railroad system ; many thousands by the pleaded 
exigences of pleasure resorts ; a large number by 
the milk business ; and, where no civil Sabbath 
prevents, another large number by pubhc shows, 
street-cars, saloons, and tobacconists' stalls. The 
change in California is too recent to have jdelded 
its full crop of evil fruits. The repeal of our 
Sabbath law was a grim and ghastly bid for the 
votes of the slums and the agents of demoraliza- 
tion. But what shall hinder now if em.ployers 
begin to demand seven days of toil in the week ? 
Worh or starve will be tlie alternative. The 
employed classes have no legal protection against 
the exactions of greed and the brutality of tyran- 
nous power. 

Contrasts of average condition as between 
Sabbath-keepers and Sabbath-breakers constitute 
an argument in favor of a civil Sal)bath. Ex- 
treme comparisons of the worst with the best are 
neither just nor manly. No man of habitual 
observation will attempt to deny that Sabbath- 



THE SABBATH. 151 

keepers average better than Sabbath-breakers of 
the same class. The very condition of filth and 
squalor which is pleaded to justify, or at least 
extenuate, Sunday excursions, pic-nics, and thea- 
ters, grows largely out of Sabbath dissipation and 
the vices to which it leads. For order, neatness, 
thrift, and domestic comfort, compare dozen with 
dozen, or thousand with thousand, as you find 
them, and the contrast will furnish a cogent rea- 
son for the proper keeping of the Lord's-day. The 
Sabbath is pre-eminently the poor man's day, 
yet not in so exclusive a sense that the rich, bur- 
dened' with the care of riches and dependent on 
the conscience-culture of many servants, do not 
also need a day of respite for themselves and of 
moral and religious uplifting for their emj)loyes. 



152 THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER X. 
The Gkounds and Claims of a Civil Sabbath. 

THE right to legislate a civil Sabbatli into 
being, and guard it against the conscience- 
less rapacity of bad men in bad businesses, is one 
feature of the right of self-protection which 
States as well as individuals enjoy. Indeed, the 
State's right is paramount, inasmuch as it engages 
to protect the individual, which engagement it 
cannot fulfill witliout protecting itself. All the 
States of the Union, save California, now assert 
and maintain the right under view. It is also 
fully recognized in England, and, in its essence, 
in all Christianly civilized countries. Such is the 
fact. Let us briefly attend to what wise men say 
of the underlying reasons : 

Count Montalembert, a French statesman, said : 
" London is kept in order by a garrison of three 
small battalions and two squadrons; while to 



TEE SABBATH. 153 

control the capital of France, whicli is half the 
size, forty thousand troops of the hne and sixty 
thousand national guards are necessary. But the 
stranger who arrives in London on Sunday morn- 
ing, when he sees every thing of commerce sus- 
pended in that gigantic capital in obedience to 
God ; when, in that colossal business, he finds 
silence and repose scarcely interrupted by the 
bells which call to prayer, and the immense 
crowd on their way to church, then his astonish- 
ment ceases." 

La Place wrote : " I have lived long enough to 
know, what at one time I did not believe, that no 
society can be upheld in happiness and honor 
without the sentiments of religion." 

Senator Bayard, of Delaware, said : " I most 
sincerely aj)prove of the civil institution of the 
Sabbath. I heartily desire to see its observance 
under statute law." 

Joseph Cook said : " The enemies of Sunday 
in a republic are the enemies of the poor man 
and of the political sanity of the community at 
large." 

Justice Woodward said of Sunday: "The 



154 THE SABBATH. 

common law adopted it along with Christianity, 
of which it is one of the bulwarks." 

Ex-Chief Justice Agnew recently said : " This 
brings us to the Sabbath, essential to the weKare 
of man and an indispensable means of instruc- 
tion. In this we see a necessary union of relig- 
ious and civil life, a necessity which rightfully 
demands the power of the civil law, that branch 
termed the police power of the State." 

In an able and spirited address delivered before 
a law and order mass-meeting in the Odeon, Cin- 
cinnati, March 29, last year. Judge M. B. Hagans 
made a powerful appeal for the enforcement of 
the civil Sabbath law. "We wish we could give 
space for the entire address ; but a few extracts 
must suffice. Of the Sunday-Sabbath law the 
Judge says : " It is a question which is grounded 
upon the needs of society and lies at the foundar 
tion of the State. It is essentially a civil regu- 
lation made for the government of man as a 
member of society. It is not, therefore, extrava- 
gant to declare that the day set apart as a day of 
rest from secular employment is the American 
Sabbath. These laws are founded on the needs 



THE SABBATH. 155 

of men for a day of rest, and are therefore jus- 
tified by the public policy of the State. ISTor has 
their constitutionality ever been questioned by 
any court anywhere, as I remember, except early 
in the history of California ; but since, in four 
cases, the law in that State has been uniformly 
upheld and approved, if not enforced. It has 
always and every- where been held that such laws 
are within the constitutional powers of the Legis- 
lature." 

Judge Allen G. Thurman, the eminent states- 
man and jurist of Ohio, in a very recent decision, 
uses language equally clear and strong, thus : 

" We have no union of Church and State, 
nor has our Government ever been vested with 
authority to enfon-ce any religious observance 
simply because it is religious. Of course it is 
no objection, but, on the contrary, is a high 
recommendation, to a legislative enactment, based 
on justice or public policy, that it is found to 
coincide with the precepts of a pure religion ; 
but the fact is nevertheless true that the power 
to make the law rests in the legislative control 
over things temporal, and not over things 



156 THE SABBATH. 

spii-itual. Thus the statute upon which the de- 
fendant rehes, prohibiting common labor on the 
Sabbath, could not stand for a moment as a law 
of this State if its sole foundation was the Chris- 
tian duty of keeping that day holy and its sole mo- 
tive to enforce the observance of that duty. For 
no power over things merely spiritual has ever 
been delegated to the Government, while any 
preference of one religion over another which the 
statute would give upon the above h^-pothesis is 
directly prohibited by the Constitution. Acts 
evil in their nature, or dangerous to the public 
welfare, may be forbidden and punished, though 
sanctioned by one religion and prohibited by an- 
other ; but this creates no preference whatever, 
for they would be equally forbidden and pun- 
ished if all religions permitted them. Thus, no 
plea of his religion could shield a murderer, rav- 
isher, or bigamist ; for the community would be 
at the mercy of superstition if such crimes as 
these could be committed with impunity because 
sanctioned by some religious delusion." 

" We are, then, to regard tlie statute under 
consideration as a mere municipal or police regu- 



THE SABBATH. 157 

lation, whose validity is neither strengthened nor 
weakened by the fact that the day of rest it en- 
joins is the Sabbath day. Wisdom requires that 
men should refrain from labor at least one day in 
seven, and the advantages of having the day of rest 
fixed, and so fixed as to happen at regularly re- 
curring intervals, are too obvious to be over- 
looked. It was within the constitutional compe- 
tency of the General Assembly to require this 
cessation of labor and to name the day of rest. 
It did so by the act referred to, and, in accord- 
ance with the feeling of a majority of the people, 
the Christian Sabbath was very properly selected. 
But, regarded merely as an exertion of legislative 
authority, the act would have had neither more 
nor less validity had any other day been adopted." 
Bloom m. Eichards. 2d O. S. 391 and 392. 

The distinguished jurist also quotes with ap- 
j)robation the following from Specht vs. The 
Commonwealth, 3 Barr, 312 : 

"All agree that to the well-being of society 
periods of rest are absolutely necessary. To be 
productive of the required advantage these 
periods must recur at stated intervals, so that the 



158 THE SABBATH. 

mass of whicli the community is composed may 
enjoy a respite from labor at the same time. 
They may be established by common consent, 
or, as is conceded, the legislative power of the 
State may, without impropriety, interfei'e to fix 
the time of their stated return and enforce 
obedience to the direction. When this happens 
some one day must be selected, and it has been, 
said the round of the week presents none which, 
being preferred, might not be regarded as favor- 
ing some one of the numerous religious sects 
into wliich mankind are divided. In a Christian 
community, where a very large majority of the 
people celebrate the first day of the week as their 
chosen period of rest from labor, it is not sur- 
prising that that day should have received the 
legislative sanction ; and, as it is also devoted to 
religious observances, we are prepared to esti- 
mate the reason why the statute should speak of 
it as the Lord's day, and denominate the infrac- 
tion of its legalized rest a profanation. Yet this 
does not change the character of the enactment. 
It is still, essentially, but a civil regulation made 
for the government of man as a member of 



THE SABBATH. 159 

society. Tlie Court further proceeds to show 
that the statute interferes witli no man's con- 
science, compels no rehgious observances, ' enters 
upon no discussion of rival claims of the first 
and seventh days of the week, treats no religious 
doctrine as paramount in the State,' and gives 
no preference to any sect ; that ' the selection of 
the day of rest is but a question of expediency,' 
and that the adoption of Sunday confers 'no 
superior religious position upon those who wor- 
ship upon that day.' " 

Judge Hagans, after quoting Judge Thurman, 
proceeds thus : 

"N^ow, what is this 'public policy,' founded 
on the well-being of society, which underlies and 
justifies this legislation? I cannot state the 
multitude of reasons. One is, however, the 
necessity of periodical seasons of rest. All hu- 
man experience demonstrates that men require it, 
and that one day in seven is the best period for 
it. The trefnendous strain of labor and business, 
the cares, peplexities and turmoil of trade, the 
stretch of mind and body in digging, delving, 
building, buying and selling, exchanging, thinking 



160 THE SABBATU. 

and planning, would wear out and destroy mind 
and body unless these regularly recurring periods 
of rest are observed. Some men may bear the 
strain without serious injury, possibly, but the 
exception only proves the rule. Thus these laws 
are at once the plea and refuge of labor in all 
lauds and in all ages. The civil Sabbath is the 
people's day ! Resting one day in seven insures 
recuperation of mind and body, so that every 
citizen is at his best to contribute to the general 
prosperity and success of the State, both in peace 
and war — in peace, for the highest and best re- 
sults in the vast and complicated transactions 
and duties of modern civilization ; in war, for 
the stalwart defense of the State." 

Then, addressing himself to those who seek to 
amend the law, he makes this appeal : 

" Come, let us reason together. Both you and 
your families, your employes and the public will 
be all the better off in mind, body, and estate, 
by a cessation from your secular jDursuits on the 
ci\al Sabbath and devoting its hours to rest and 
recreation that does not infringe on the rights of 
others — rest from cankering care; rest from 



THE SABBATH. 161 

the wearing perplexities of business ; rest from 
the ceaseless strife of the market and the anxious 
collisions of shrewdness and competition; rest 
from the swinging of the hammer, the shoving 
of the plane, the guiding of the plow, and the 
roar of trade in all its multitudinous forms ; re^ 
from the weariness of the desk and the office ; 
rest in the bosom of your families and amid the 
sanctities of the hearth-stone, where the sweet 
incense of communion shall smoke on the home 
altar forever. Such a day will be a vindication 
of the divine pliilosophy of the apothegm, 
' The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
for the Sabbatli.' " 

The civil Sabbath draws strong collateral sup- 
port from the vast moral and educational advan- 
tages inseparably associated with an orderly Sab- 
bath. These tend to uplift and ennoble citizens 
and tliereby benefit the State. The measure of 
authentic manhood is the expansion and strength 
of the moral nature. The Sabbatli law is written 
in the frame of beasts, the soil we till, the con- 
stitution of steel and iron, brass and wood, mus- 
cle and intellect ; but pre-emmently in conscience 
11 



162 THE SABBATH. 

and will. Lord Macaulay, discussing the ten- 
hour bill before the British House of Commons, 
said: 

"The natural difference between Campagnia 
and Spitzenbergen is trifling when compared with 
the difference between a country inhabited by men 
full of mental and bodily vigor, and a country in- 
habited by men sunk in bodily and mental decrep- 
itude. Therefore it is we are not poorer, but richer, 
because we have in many ages rested one day in 
seven. That day is not lost. While industry is 
suspended, while the plow lies in the furrow, 
while the exchange is silent, while no smoke as- 
cends from the factory, a process is going on 
quite as important to the M-ealth of nations as 
any process which is performed on more busy 
days. Now the machine of machines, the ma- 
chine compared with which all the contrivances 
of the Watts and the Arkwrights are worthless, 
is repairing and winding up, so that he returns 
to his labors on the Monday with clearer intel- 
lect, with livelier spirits, with renewed corporeal 
vigor." 

It is scientifically demonstrable that on a work- 



THE SABBATH. 163 

ing day we give out more vitality tlian we take 
in. On a rest-day we take in more than we give 
out, and so restore and maintain the condition of 
prolonged and vigorous life. 

I need not burden these pages with further 
quotations. A civil Sabbath law, to fully answer 
its beneficent intent, should close the doors of 
dissipation and demoralization, such as the saloon, 
the dance-house, the house of the strange woman, 
and every place admittedly corrupting and de- 
structive to health and public morals. If a gov- 
ernment can close saloons on election it can 
close them on Sabbath. Who oppose such a law ? 
Possibly many of the unthinking would rank 
themselves with the opposition without purjDose 
or conviction. But, mainly, the angry and organ- 
ized opponents will be found among the keepers 
of Sunday resorts, the owners of lines of Sunday 
travel, saloon-keepers, win e-makers, distillers, gam- 
blers, pickpockets, courtesans, pimps, and thieves 
in general. Let me quote a piece of sarcasm, as 
true as terrible, from an eloquent address de- 
livered in Cincinnati in March last year, by Kev. 
M. C. Lock wood: 



164 THE SABBATH. 

"We have heard men trying to rouse race 
prejudices, and in the name of the German peo- 
ple asking for a German Sunday. It is the 
clamor of anarchists ; I see the red cap of Jacobin- 
ism above it all. Do you want the German 
Sunday, working-men of America ? Have a Ger- 
man Sunday and we shall need a German gov- 
ernment. We must have the authority of mili- 
tary, as the authority of law these anarchists 
do not and will not respect. Do you want a 
German Sunday ? Ask the soap-boilers, leather- 
dressers, molders, porcelain and glass-makers, en- 
gravers, and butchers of Germany. Say, Myn- 
heer Turner, why did you not telegraph to 
the laborers in convention held at Berlin a few 
weeks ago and secure their congratulations that 
you expected to win a German Sunday for them 
in America ? Do you know all that a German 
Sunday means for these ? Read their resolutions 
condemning Sunday work, and asking that it be 
prohibited by law. They are weary of Sunday 
work. Their cry has gone up through all the 
earth. They want their Sunday rest, and under 
an absolute reiffn of labor over the whole realm 



TEE SABBATH. 165 

of their lives they suffer under as great a wrong 
as ever man has borne. 

" Wlio are these philanthropists clamoring for 
the poor working-men ? The railroad corpora- 
tions, working their hands sixteen hours a day, at 
$1 75 per day, seven days in the week. These want 
the poor working-man to have his Sunday recrea- 
tion ; and the theater manager, one of the sort 
that, Sunday, in this city put a little child on the 
stage, of tender years, within a few hours of her 
long journey from Chicago, to dance and go 
through her performance, all for the benefit of 
the poor working-men. And the saloon-keepers, 
working their barkeepers, on slender pay, from 
daylight until after midnight, giving them little 
more than four or five hours a night for sleep — 
these are anxious about the poor working-men. 
As anxious as a politician or a party newspaper 
round about election times — while one inside 
of two months will vote under the instruction of 
tlie corporation lobby, and the other will write 
long editorials against trades-unions the rest of 
the years ; but we preachers, pietists, pharisees, 
the disciples of the Nazarene Carpenter, we want 



166 THE SABBATH. 

to deprive the poor working-inan of his 'moral 
education ! ' Ali, wJiat moral education — mar- 
velously moral ! O , the diabolical cant, tlie rank- 
smelling hypocrisy, tlie hell-generated lying as 
to the moral education of our stage! 

" Go and get it of a Langtry and Freddie, of a 
Bernhardt, of a Neilson, Get a moral education 
of a Camille, ' Moths ' and ' Kit, the Arkansas 
Traveler.' Get it from the ballet and female 
minstrels. Why, actors are laughing in their 
sleeves, and wink when they borrow the phrase. 
One can get as good a moral education in a brothel 
as in the average theater. Well, all these railroad 
corporations, saloon-keepers, theater managers, 
and beer brewers insist that their cars shall be 
crowded, saloons filled and theaters packed, all 
for the benefit of the poor working-man and his 
toil-worn family." 

The benevolent interest of the agents of de- 
moralization in the happiness of the poor " work- 
ing-man " is like that of the tender-hearted 
Apache who kindly proposes to lift from the 
object of his solicitude the Inirden of his scalp. 

A civil Sabbath law should be so framed as to 



TEE SABBATH. 167 

make it legally impossible for one man or class 
to compel another man or class to labor. With- 
out tliis, greed and selfish pleasure-seeking will 
force hundreds and thousands to work or starve. 
JS'o manly man, when once made to see the rela- 
tion which his recreation sustains to others' toil, 
will willfully persist in seeking enjoyment at the 
expense of those who must work seven days in a 
week to furnish the means of it. 

The duty of employers to the employed has an 
important relation to the Sabbath law. The 
money craze of the present century, especially 
in America, is alarming. The idolatry of covet- 
ousness is not a new thing under the sun ; but 
the rapidity of amassment and the insane ambi- 
tion to amass are marked phenomena of the in- 
tense life we are living. Every business must 
be driven at cost of comfort, health, and life, if 
need be. As yet one day in seven is grudgingly 
given to such workmen as are not actively con- 
nected with the vastly multiplied agencies of 
Sabbath desecration. Railroads, steamers, all 
modes of public conveyance, put a premium 
upon Sabbath-breaking by offering excursion 



16S 2SS SABBATH. 

rates on the holy day ; and hundreds of thousands 
are obliged to work on that day or sacrifice place 
and bread. 

Many wha enjoy release frora toil plead with 
plausibility that they need and must have recre- 
ation, and Sabbath is the only day which affords 
the requisite opportunity. Their notions of 
" recreation " are often contravening to the laws 
of health ; but the plea finds ground in the 
severe confinement of the week, often carried 
late into Saturday night. It must be appai-ent 
to a man who thinks, that every useful branch of 
trade and business would enjoy the same average 
prosperity if less hours of toil were exacted. In 
England, on a wide scale, Saturday afternoon (a 
full-measured, honest afternoon) is given to the 
employed classes in shops and stores. Thus in- 
door laborers are refreshed and are deprived of 
every reasonable pretext for desecrating the Sab- 
bath or embarrassing the ©iteration of a Sabbath 
law. 

Of all countries America most needs a well- 
kept Sabbath, and, of all countries, can best 
afford the requisite relief to her laboring people. 



THE SABBATH. 169 

Under a government as free as ours, with so 
wide a distribution of the suffrage, there lodges 
with the masses a tremendous power of self- 
preservation or self-destruction. It needs only a 
majority of conscienceless voters to overturn the 
Government and destroy the liberties which have 
cost so dear. Every thing depends on conscience- 
power, and that on conscience-culture. But 
there can be no general and adequate conscience- 
culture without a periodic day set apart and 
guarded for this high jDurpose. In a land of vast, 
varied, virgin resources — a land of plenty in a 
sense unknown to other lands — a Saturday half- 
holiday can well be aiforded. There are impreg- 
nable reasons for assuming that nothing would 
be lost in the aggregate products of industry by 
this beneficent arrangement. Let Christian em- 
ployers lead off, and Christian and temperance 
employes prudently demand such a modification 
of the labor system, and it will erelong be granted. 
Then let the civil Sabbath be respected for its 
proper uses and guarded against demoralizing 



170 THE SABBATH. 



CHAPTER XI. 
Pkevalent Abuses of the Sabbath. 

THE growing irreverence for the Sabbath is 
to be ascribed, "in a large degree, to the ill 
use made of it by its professed friends. I write 
this sentence advisedly and wdth sorrow, after ex- 
tended observation. The readiness and reckless- 
ness with which professedly Christian people 
turn the day into a time of half business, pleas- 
ure, or mere animal rest, indicates great irrever- 
ence toward the divine law or great ignorance 
of its claims. The day is secularized for pleasure 
or gain for reasons so frivolous and impertinent 
as to excite the contempt of sensible men of the 
world. 

A party of municipal and State officials in 
Yosemite Yalley were planning to go out via 
Glacier Point on Sabbath. Wlien remonstrated 
with they said they knew it was not entirely 



THE SABBATH. 171 

riglit, but they could worship so amid the grand 
scenery ! Men of the world laugh at such 
puerility, and well they may. These men were 
under obHgation, as civil oiBcers, to treat with 
respect the Sabbath sentiment of the American 
people if they had no personal regard for the 
divine institute. Square-shouldered sinning, law 
or no law, would have been less nauseating and 
less a mockery of common sense. 

A young church member took stage from 
San Jose to San Francisco on Sabbath, making a 
journey of fifty-one miles, for the assigned 
reason that it would have cost him a dollar and a 
half [of the Lord-of-the-Sabbath's money !] to 
stay till Monday. 

Two ladies wished to ride into the country on 
the holy day, but had faint scruples of con- 
science, and especially feared that their pastors 
(they belonged to different churches) would re- 
buke them. Happily they bethought them that 
there was a melodeon at the house they wished 
to visit. So they made the ride of twelve miles, 
ate a chicken dinner, talked, laughed, joked, 
mongered news, had a good time, and then sang 



172 THE SABBATH. 

two Sundaj-scliool songs to make it right with 
their consciences and the Lord ! 

A camp-meeting committee, possessed of a 
contract power to prevent the running of Sunday 
trains, dehberatelj voted to run extra trains on 
the sacred day, and charge forty cents extra the 
round trip as reverence to the ground. Some of 
the reasons urged in extenuation were these: 
1. So many pious people could not come from 
the city [full of needy and half-empty churches] 
to the camp on any other day. 2. They had 
eight policemen to preserve order [among these 
devout souls !] 3. They sang hymns on the way. 
4. And — finally — they ran Sunday trains six years 
before, a crowd of roughs came out from the city, 
and two of them were converted. Did not that 
prove that God approbated the Sunday train ? 

The devil must be delighted witli such logic. 
Wlien told of two young men who fell under 
deep con\'iction while stealing watermelons, and 
both were converted, which of course proved 
that stealing melons is a valuable means of grace, 
they appeared to think that somehow or some- 
where there was a fallacy in the reasoning. 



THE SABBATH. 173 

An official member of a chm-cli found himself 
far from home when overtaken by Saturday- 
night. He knew that it would not be right to 
travel on Sabbath in a secular way. But — ^happy 
thought — thirty miles on the homeward road was 
a little meeting-house, and he could attend service 
tliere at night ! So he mounted his horse, made 
the journey, lied to God and his conscience all 
day, and made all right by the beggarly cheat of 
a sleepy attendance on evening preaching. I 
never heard whether the preacher took the fourth 
commandment for his text. 

The fashion of pleading puerile extenuations 
of a great and glaring sin is not confined to the 
laity. Sometimes (I hope but rarely), to accom- 
modate a lecture engagement, or sleep in his own 
bed, or exchange pulpits after spending half a 
week in idleness, or gain considerable notoriety 
and some money by preaching at some noted re- 
sort of Sabbath-breakers — sometimes, I say, min- 
isters set a damaging, if not damning, example 
before all eyes. There is hardly a train run on 
Lord's day which may not hook itself to the 
crazy and selfish logic of Sabbath-brealsiiig 



174 THE SABBATU. 

clmrch members. Is it ignorance of the law or 
defiance of the Lawgiver ? 

There are church members who dream in 
cushioned pews while their coachmen sit, reins in 
hand, through the wearying service, and their 
servants at home are hot and angry in kitchen 
and dining-room, preparing sumptuous dinners 
for their self-denying master and mistress and 
more or less invited disciples of the lowly Jesus ! 
No wonder that such masters wish to believe 
that the fourth commandment has been repealed. 

There are Christian (?) families whose mem- 
bers, from grandsire to youngest reader, are 
engaged, through all the studious hours of the 
day with the Sunday newspaper and novels of 
the lighter sort, with occasional games of chess 
or cards for variety. These people are usually 
too tired to attend evening service in their re- 
spective churches, and the dear cliildren can't 
go to preaching after Sabbath-school. No won- 
der. Friday night they were at the theater till 
eleven ; Tuesday night they attended a fashion- 
able party ; Wednesday night they were at the 
dancing-school ; Saturday-night they were at the 



TEE SABBATH. 175 

skating-rink. Why did God make a Sabbath 
law to put inconvenient demands upon children 
who are being trained in the nurture and admo- 
nition of the ? When the Son of man 

cometh shall he find faith upon the earth ? Who 
is to answer for souls that perish through such 
examples ? 

I need not make mention of the pomp of an 
empty " worship," of forms as dead as the souls 
that rest in them, of the sensationalism which de- 
grades the pulpit, of the vanity that defiles the 
pew, of the arrogance that repels the humble, 
and the bigotry that disgusts the sensible. These, 
too sadly often, are spots in our Sabbath feasts 
of charity, clouds without water, trees without 
fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. God's 
" house of prayer for all nations " is all too often 
a sjTiagogue of Satan for the display of the 
wretched cheatery of a sham religion ; and Sab- 
bath is made the day for its chief exhibition. 

The very Sabbath-school, in many places, has 
ceased to be an auxiliary of home and pulpit in- 
struction, and become a substitute for both. It 
ought not so to be. Such a perversion frustrates 



176 THE SABBATH. 

tlie legitimate design of one of tlie best of insti- 
tutions. 

There are incidents and items of associated 
life, to many apparently trifling, wliicli involve 
the cpiestion of Christian Sabbath-keeping. Mu- 
tual dependence suggests mutual responsibihty. 
We have many men-servants and maid-servants 
not of our mimediate households, oxen not of 
our own herds, strangers not within our own 
gates, for whose toiling on the sacred day we may 
be held to answer. We must have milk ; there- 
fore the milkman can enjoy no Sabbath. " But 
how can we be comfortable ^vithout milk?" 
Suppose we should consent to a trifle of discomfort 
in this single item ? " He will have to come to 
our irreligious neighbors, and it adds little to his 
work to come to us." Teach jomt neighbor a 
better way. "How would you rear a family 
without milk ? " Some have succeeded in rear- 
ins: sons and daughters without one call from the 
milkman on Sabbath. "But what would you 
do if you had a sick babe ? " If I had a sick 
babe and it needed milk I would procure it at 
any necessary cost, on the same principle that I 



THE SABBATH. 177 

would go for a doctor. Albeit I would not de- 
mand Sabbath visits from the milkman the year 
round in anticipation of sickness, or in remem- 
brance of sickness long since past. Ludicrously 
enough, tliis " argument " of the sick babe falls 
glibly from the lips of well-to-do parents of 
grown-up children; married people who never 
had children ; venerable maidens who are not 
in unminent peril of that sort of domestic 
affliction, and wrinkled bachelors who will darn 
their own socks till they need darned socks no 
more. I -dwell a little on this commonest and 
cunningest of the defenses of Sunday work be- 
cause it is omniaudient. But God's law sweeps 
dowTi upon all evasions, even the most plausible. 
Thy man-servant, the milkman, must rest as well 
as thou. 

A lady has a costly dress or hat in process of 
making. She left the order late and is to go to 
a party, a missionary meeting, a carnival for the 
benefit of the poor, on Monday. She is very 
particular, and will carry lier patronage to another 
establishment if disapi>ointed. The dressmaker 

or milliner toils with aching eyes till long past 
12 



178 THE SABBATH. 

midnight of Saturday. The work is not done. 
It must be finished before Monday morning ; so 
the weary worker for bread, thoughtlessness, and 
vanity, must work on the Lord's day. O woman, 
professed follower of the ]^azarene, thy maid- 
servant, the dressmaker, must rest as well as thou. 

The barber would so enjoy a rest-day with M-if e 
and childi-en, a breath of fragrant air in the little 
home garden, or an hour of spiritual uplifting 
in the sanctuary ; but stately old men, thought- 
less young men, consequential rich men, and 
querulous poor men, resident and transient, 
have neglected to get shaved on Saturday after- 
noon or evening and must be served to-day. 

I need not carry the train of thought farther. 
Every one can, if he will, see very far along the 
line of Christian practical life. A supreme de- 
sire to do the will of God will give open vision. 
It is needless to specify Sabbath j)leasure-riding, 
parties, excursions by land or water, shows, 
" sacred concerts," Sunday papers, and a hundred 
and one unworthy uses of the Sabbath made for 



THE SABBATH, 179 



CHAPTER XII. 
Eight Uses of the Sabbath. 

THE Sabbath is a day of physical rest. " Six 
days shalt thou labor and do aU thy work " 
— all properly belonging to that week. Thought- 
ful Christian thrift will have every thing in 
order, outdoor and in, for the precious joy-day. 
All the practicable cooking will be done on Sat- 
urday, with special reference to cheerful, taste- 
ful, grateful meals. Shoe-blackening, preparation 
of Sabbath clothes, bathing, oiling of carriage, 
adjustment of harness, and all the little things 
which enter into preparation for a restful home- 
day and a profitable church-day will be habitually 
and cheerfully attended to on Saturday. 

Salhath is a holy day. The reading and 
conversation of the day should wear a cast of 
sober cheerfulness, of grateful, deep, reverent 
joy. Reading-matter suitable to interest and 



180 THE SABBATH. 

instruct children and youth should be selected 
dui'ing the week and laid aside for their special 
and profitable pleasure on the Lord's day. ^o 
growhng or groaning, fault-finding or back- 
biting, evil surmising or tale-bearing, should 
defile the tongue and the day (or any other day). 
God's word, delightedly studied, should hold the 
supreme place. 

Sabbath is a glad day. As far as possible 
banish every element of discontent and gloom. 
It is the joy-day of the world. On this day we 
were begotten again to a lively hope and to a 
glorious inheritance by the resurrection of our 
Lord. Occujjy the best room, let rarest flowers 
bloom in every vase; sing happy Christian 
songs ; walk and talk in the garden ; watch the 
birds building their nests in the vines ; converse 
about the resurrection, and what it did for the 
world ; teach children and servants realizingly to 
"call the sabbath a dehght, the holy of the 
LoKD, honorable." 

Sahhath is a day for loorship and instruction 
in tlie sanctuary. " Te shall keep my sabbaths 
and reverence my sanctuary : I am the Lord." 



THE SABBATH. 181 

" The glory of Lebanon sliall come unto thee, the 
fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to 
beautify the place of my sanctuary ; and I will 
make the place of ray feet glorious." " Let us 
consider one another to provoke unto love and 
to good works : not forsaking the assembling — 
emovvayoyrjv — episunagogen — " synagoguing" 
— of ourselves together, as the manner of some 
is." Episionagogen is a strong term, and enjoins 
the higher synagoguing together in the Chris- 
tian sanctuary, above Jewish zeal and Jewish 
privileges. The duty of attending the stated 
services of the house of God is as plain as that 
of keeping the Sabbath holy. The design of 
the Sabbatic institute would be largely frustrated 
without consecrated places of teaching and wor- 
ship. A man who dishonors the place of worship 
by needless absence and neglect on the holy day 
violates the Sabbath. And it is no abatement of 
the misuse if he stay at home and read the life 
of Henry Martyn, or his Bible, or attempt to 
compromise by praying more than usual. Duty 
admits of no proxy, no substitute, no compromise. 
The place for Christians, parents and children, 



182 THE SABBATH. 

young and old, is in the assemblies of God's peo- 
ple at tlie stated liours of public worship. We 
have only to reflect on what would be the conse- 
quence of universal neglect in order to realize 
the force of individual obligation. So imperative 
is the duty and so priceless the privilege that 
the disciples of the early centuries periled life to 
perform the one and enjoy the other. Who, then, 
will measure our guilt and shame if we, with no 
jealous Jews to spy upon us, no pagan laws to 
imprison us, no red hand of the persecutor to 
pursue us, no need for concealment in dens and 
caves — if we, whose houses of worship stand 
boldly on pubhc streets, whose bells call to 
prayer with a voice which no power dares at- 
tempt to silence; if we, from happy homes 
guarded by Christian law and sentiment, with 
paved and lighted city streets, and broad and 
safe country roads ; if we, with full tables and 
golden harvest fields ; if we, favored above many 
— leave our empty pews to cry out against our in- 
difference, to discourage the spirit of the faithful, 
and sanction the neghgence of the supine, and 
embolden the profligacy of the profane ? 



THE SABBATH. 183 

The Sabbath is as agreeable to the wise benef- 
icence of God and as necessary to the welfare of 
men as in any age. It is as binding upon your 
conscience, reader, as it was upon that of Joshua, 
or Caleb, or Paul, or Justin Martyr, or our Pil- 
grim Fathers, who sought and found on these 
shores 

"Freedom to worship God." 

The sacred keeping of the Sabbath must ever 
remain a prominent feature in the distinction be- 
tween those who serve God and those who serve 
him not. Is it reasonable to suppose that those 
wlio find no pleasure in kee23ing the day of the 
Lord holy here vnW be found meet for the Sab- 
hatismos of the life beyond ? The Sabbath was 
MADE FOR MAN. " Remember the sabbath day, to 
keep it holy," bears as much of the wisdom, 
authority, and love of God, as " Thou shall not 
kill." 



INDEX AND BRIEF /NALYSIS OF CHAPTERS, 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

The Sabbath, its Institution, its Pertersion into 
THE Day op the Scn, its Degradation to Sun- 
worship ] 7 

Early notices of the weekly division of time 19 

Early prevalence of the Sabeau idolatry with its 

sun-worship 21 

Sun-worship in Egypt — Sunday the perverted 

primeval Sabbath 24 

The Hebrews worshiped the Egyptian sun-god, 

Osiris 26 

CHAPTER II. 

The Meaning of the Name Sabbath 30 

Shabath means more than rest, or seventh, or 

week, or all of them together 32 

Sabbath is a sacred proper name of a movable 

festival 39 

CHAPTER III. 

The Exodus — The Revised Calendar— The New 

Sabbath 44 

A new beginning of the Hebrew year — Abib 

changes place with Tisri 48 



186 INDEX AND BRIEF ANALYSIS. 

The 15th of Abib, the day of the Exode, made "« 
tlie initial of the septenary Sabbatlis of the 
Hebrews — Their Sabbath began in the even- 
ing, to commemorate the passover supper. . . 49 

Further proofs of Hebrew sun-worship and change 

of Sabbath 53 

The Hebrews had a Sabbath out of the septenary 

order 56 

The revised Hebrew calendar 58 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Sabbath Law 60 

Formally announced at Sinai — Decalogue univer- 
sal law — Unlike Hebrew statutes and cere- 
monials 64 

The Fourth Commandment is the Sabbath law.. . 67 

CHAPTER V. 
The Law op the Sabbath 70 

Requires six days of virtuous labor 71 

Requires the suspension of secular toil in order to 
the higher uses — Every seventh convenient 
and usual division of time 71 

Adapted to the shape and motions of the earth 

and obeyable in all latitudes and longitudes.. 72 

The theory of the seventh day, in absolute astro- 
nomical and septenary identity, absurd, and 
the laws so interpreted unobeyable 73 

It is a relative and ordinal seventh every-where. . 74 

An accommodation of time imperative — Which 

party should yield ? 80 

Statutory provisions not to be confounded with 

the law 82 



INDEX AND BRIEF ANALYSIS. 187 

CHAPTER VI. 

A Change of Sabbath Foretold and Foreshadowed. 84 
One arreat promise runs through Israelitish his- 
tory — And one day, the morrow after the Sab- 
bath, particularly distinguished 85 

Reasons for the change 90 

" Teaching facts " 92 

Recapitulation 96 

CHAPTER YII. 

The Lord of the Sabbath Made the Foreshadowed 

Change, and the Holy Spirit Certified it 101 

Right rendering of Matt, xxviii, 1 ; Mark xvi, 2, 
9 ; Luke xxiv, 1 ; John xx, 1, 19 ; Acts xx, 
7 ; I Cor. xvi, 2 ; Acts xiii, 42, 44 — " Contem- 
porary usage " of the Rabbins not authority. 105 

Argument from Providence 114 

Early Christian usage and views — Justin Martyr.. 116 
The Roman or common day adopted — Evangelists 

— Alford 119 

General effect 120 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Patristic Testimony and Usage 123 

Competent witnesses of matters of fact 123 

Why the fatiiers, in disputing with Jews, did not 

use tbe name Subbath for resurrection day. . 124 
The escape of the Christians from the siege of 

Jerusalem 120 

A flagrant falsification of history corrected 127 

No Sabbatli or all Sabbath theory 139 

Logical effects of the preceding argument 140 

Mathematical demonstralion 144 



188 INDEX AND BRIEF ANALYSIS. 

CHAPTER IX. "«» 

Opinions of Wise Men 145 

CHAPTER X. 

The Grounds and Claims of a Civil Sabbath 152 

The right to enact a civil Sabbath law generally 

sustained 152 

Opinions in support of its value — Count Monta- 
lembert, La Place, Senator Bayard, Joseph 
Cook, Justice Woodward, ex-Chief Justice 
Agnew, Judge M. B. Hagans, Judge Allen G. 

Thurman, Rev. M. Lockwood 152 

Vast moral and educational advantages 160 

Lord Macaulay 1 62 

ScientiSc reasons 16.1 

Who oppose the law 164 

A civil Sabbath, how framed 166 

The duty of employers toward the employed 167 

CHAPTER XL 
Prevalent Abuses op the Sabbath ItO 

CHAPTER XIL 
Right Uses of the Sabbath 179 



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